Business Level Conferencing in Second Life?
Great America Networks Conferencing LLC announced in a press release today Finally Real Business Level Conferencing Available in Second Life! “A new full service audio conferencing solution has arrived in Second Life. Great America Network Conferencing (GANC) unveiled its full service conference packages to companies or groups that want to hold large meetings in Second Life.”
The opening paragraph of GANC’s press release asks:
Is your organization ready to experience the transition from a life of constant travel and the associated expenses associated with attending meetings across the globe? Are your employees constantly flying throughout the country, spending an hour to get to the airport, an hour waiting for their flight, 5 hours on the plane, another hour to get to their hotel room and yet another hour to travel to the meeting location, to then sit in a meeting room with colleagues or clients for a ONE HOUR MEETING? If this is a frequent scenario for your organization, then you will be glad to know that there is an alternative.
They then give a hypothetical scenario about rolling out a new product where members, from around the globe, of the team will come together to hold a meeting. This meeting will be held in Second Life. The members of the team go to GANC’s website to log into Second Life and are taken directly to an “Tutorial Island” for a detailed walk-through of the Second Life environment. The training will consist of how to use their interface, what an avatar is and how to change their look and feel, how to move throughout the world of Second Life.
After the orientation, the user will be directed to the conference facility where a Meeting Consultant ensures the user is capable of participating in the meeting. The Meeting Consultant provides detailed instruction on how to access the audio portion of their conference either through an audio stream, or via telephone conference and Toll-Free number, as well as how to view and access any documentation or presentations on their web browser or in-world.
Audio Conferencing – done through our state-of-the-art Compunetix bridging platform with the capability to bridge up to 5,000 participants at once. Crystal clear voice quality on a platform that is designed for 24/7 uptime and reliability on a fully redundant carrier network in a co-location facility in downtown Chicago IL that provides for emergency backup power, multiple power grids, multiple carrier egress and much more.
Web Conferencing – we will allow you to project your PowerPoint presentations, documents and applications into the Second Life world, while also allowing your participants to choose to work in world, or directly through their Internet Browser, based on their personal preference. You can do PowerPoint presentations, desktop sharing, application sharing and much more with our proprietary web conferencing platform.
On 22 May 2007 I wrote about the Iraq Study Group and President Bush’s administration officials holding a meeting in Second Life. Now it appears GANC is betting that more businesses are going to be willing to cut the expenses of business meetings by holding them in Second Life.
Do you think business will be willing to forgo face to face meeting to save the expenses of traveling and the time to hold Real Life Meetings?
May 28th, 2007 • 
Weirdharold • 
comment | May 28, 2007 at 15:34 | individual comment-link
It is inevitable that tele-presence will become the standard for long distance business meetings. Just have a look at Webex… and the fact that meetings of I’d say 15 or less can soon be held for free in the coming months with a voice enabled Second Life. Hmm… now there’s an idea.
comment | May 29, 2007 at 20:56 | individual comment-link
“24/7 uptime” wh?? Must not be sing an SL client.
comment | May 29, 2007 at 21:04 | individual comment-link
Whether using an Second Life client or not, that is a pretty “big” Claim! But you point is well understood.
pingback | May 30, 2007 at 21:41 | individual pingback-link
[...] in Second Life to woo customers through complex advertisements and other companies are even holding virtual business meetings. Real world real estate firms have taken their skills into Second Life to sell virtual estate. [...]
comment | May 31, 2007 at 07:14 | individual comment-link
Hello,
You’ll probably notice that I own the company mentioned in the press release, so I’m obviously biased, but I would like to address your points.
1. 24/7 Reliability: We have a significant investment in hardware, software, and network bandwidth in a carrier hotel facility. We run multiple server farms, fault tolerance, redundant AC, power, etc. We have a lot of money invested in our infrastructure to specifically be able to make that claim. In the year and a half that my company has been running we have had one outage for 5 minutes. Yes, we do have clients who access our services 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and their services are mission critical.
2. Utilizing the “Free voice in SL”. This is not a viable answer for businesses for many reasons, but I’ll just go through the short version:
Reliability – nowhere close to 24/7 uptime
Voice Quality – nowhere close to our carrier-class hardware/software
Accessibility – businesses do not use PC’s and Microphones on a wide basis. The use the “telephone”
Many others that I would be happy to elaborate on if anyone wants to contact me directly.
Will it work for the average SL user? Of course, just like SL in general works for the “typical” SL user. It will not work for a business press conference, or any instance where they want communication through normal telephonic means, or need excellent voice quality, business reliability, etc.
Think of how many times words have been dropped or garbled, or entire sentences, or entire conferences and communication lines being dropped when you used an IP based client (ventrilo, Teamspeak, Netmeeting, etc.) It’s ok for a casual conversation, it would be traumatic for a live press conference or a new product announcement.
The other key point is that in addition to the actual communications aspect, we provide an array of add-on services: Transcriptions, Recordings, Podcast Versions, Operator Assistance, Customized Tutorial Sim (for those new to SL, they go through a tutorial with our staff, get add-on items, etc.) and show up for an event prepared and well-versed in the SL culture. We also provide pre and post event services including live music, games, and much more to provide a truly unique experience.
You can find out about my company at http://www.ganconference.com.
You can find out more about the SL Division at http://www.slconferencing.com
You can read my blog at http://ganconference.typepad.com/ganc/
I welcome any feedback you have.