Why Business Shouldn’t Give Up on Virtuality
When I first read this article in the Christian Science Monitor about corporations doing business in Second Life, There.com and other virtual worlds, it sounded like every other gee-whiz article written abou online life, and I was on the verge of clicking out when this excerpt caught my eye (note to CSM copy editor: you could have edited this one with the delete-paragraph key!):
“Each new virtual space means building a storefront, the equivalent of making a new Web page for every brand of Web browser.
“Now, more than 20 major technology firms, including IBM and Microsoft, have agreed to explore ways to connect these worlds. The move could mainstream online 3-D commerce and, more broadly, popularize a new, more visual, way to interact online.
“‘We have all these different platforms, and if you invest in one you’re really pretty much locked in,’ says Robert Bloomfield, a professor of accounting who researches virtual worlds at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.”
This concept, called interoperability, is why businesses who gave up early on doing business in virtual worlds need to come back and try again. Maybe they didn’t understand this new medium, or they came in without knowing how to operate and what to expect from it, or because some hotshot talked the marketing department into it. Come back while costs on the ground floor are relatively cheap!
December 6th, 2007 • 
Evansmom Goodspeed • 
comment | December 7, 2007 at 02:13 | individual comment-link
I saw the article and figured it was probably talking about the news from early October; the announcement that came out of the Virtual World Conference and Expo. If there’s something new being announced, please post a link.
comment | December 7, 2007 at 10:16 | individual comment-link
Learning the culture of the virtual world is essential…and I’m afraid too many companies take an “if we build it, they will come” attitude without understanding the culture behind the platform. You can’t just set up a store and walk away, thinking people will show up based on brand name recognition. That might work for a week. Maybe. Life moves differently in a virtual world. And too many companies don’t take the time to understand that.
(Side note: it is my opinion that, just like the VHS/Beta wars of the past, one platform will eventually come out on top and the others drop to the sides.Will be interesting to see who ends up dominating the virtual world field)