IBM And Linden Lab Team For Virtual World Interoperability

I have the greatest respect for IBM … and almost no respect for Linden Labs. SL is a joke, designed for people who don’t have a real life. The entire UX (user experience) sucks. It’s all hype, no substance. Worlds, Inc. 2.0, but without a lot of progress since the demise of the original.

I’m disappointed IBM would waste time on this. Sounds like something Irving Wladawsky-Berger had his hand in (if not, I apologize to Irving).

Two thumbs down for IBM. BTW, if Google really is launching their own version of SL (as some are claiming), I hope it’s a lot better than SL. And I’d rather see IBM work with Google (cf. Symphony/OpenOffice) versus wasting time with LL.

This seems similar to the Metaverse 1.0 consortium we blogged about. Even better, Philips told me they will be discussing things at the conference with IBM and the likes, so it seems an even bigger push towards setting the (right) standards!

Check the post:
http://www.lostinthemagicforest.com/blog/?p=43

I look forward to what they can do together.

The one to watch in this space is playstation 3’s. Better graphics than second life.

Creating Virtual World for small and large business is not good idea. Playing games & flirting AI chicks rather than shopping.

I’m an IBMer and have been very invovled in our virtual worlds efforts, and wanted to offer two thoughts.

First, this field is still new, and rapidly evolving, with many new services and innovations announced every day. Second Life deserves tremendous credit for inspiring so much interest in the possibility of rich and meaningful experiences in virtual environments, despite the well-known limitations of its current user interface, grid performance, etc.

We see a future where there will be a virtual universe of platforms, services and business opportunities, and are investigating many different fronts.

Given the incredible renaissance in Web 2.0 types of applications and services, and the natural way in which people seem to enjoy and gravitate toward 3D and social spaces, I think the future intersection of these releated fields is very bright, and that we have only begun to scratch the surface of how 3D innovations will contribute to the evolution of the internet.

Is there a way to send Instant Messaging between virtual worlds?

Best regards
Mads

Please be more open minded. Have you taken the time to visit the IBM center in Second Life? It covers a vast number of regions and is truly beautiful and an excellent model of a virtual conference / collaboration environment. Up to 400 people can watch and listen to the same business presentation at the same, because they put the screens in the corner of 4 regions. I would suggest you go visit the region called IBM and just explore is it really well done. (Not an IBM or Second life Employee, but a regular IT professional)

Next Playstation3, is just a game platform - you win, get killed and keep score, yes the graphics may be better sometimes, but it is very limited in it’s dynamics as many other games like WOW you are kind of stuck on a specific server and can’t see your friends on other servers. Second life allows total freedom to play the games people have created in the I love Gorean role play myself or do what every your heart desires, dancing, romance shopping, hang gliding, building, scripting, surfing and there is always another exciting spot to visit with just one click you can go anywhere all of the time. The graphics are really great for such a complex environment.. There are few limits; it is a virtual life, freedom and creativity on Steroids without having to drive anywhere. It is a great hobby to have as long as you remember there is a real life too. *laughs*

Okay getting off m soap box, thanks everyone.

It’s easy to criticize Second Life for graphics or concurrency limits, but people without the technical background don’t realize that what Linden is doing is significantly harder than, say, Sony’s Home. Once you make the entire world physical, constantly modifyable, and streamed just-in-time, it creates a whole set of engineering problems that other VWs don’t have to solve. Sony can focus on graphics if they think it’ll help them sell PS3s (as opposed to say, Wiis). That’s fine. Most companies will understandably choose the easier path, without building a richly simulated world. But it’s apples and oranges.

Unfortnuately, regarding this announcement, the same things that make it hard for SL to scale up also make it hard for SL avatars to be portable to systems that don’t, for example, support 3D prims on avatars, or scripts, or physical simulation. That means any of three things:

1. Linden may push its simulator technology out there, resulting in other VWs having more Linden-like capabilities (but perhaps some of the same drawbacks)
2. Linden may streamline its avatars and put some limits on how creative people can be to improve cross-world migration
3. To avoid “lost in translation” errors, avatars will use a central internet repository to store the “complete” multi-purpose avatar which could enter any world with appropriate temporary loss of capability, depending on the destination.

If #3, then who owns it? If Linden, then they would seem to benefit no matter the path, so it’s a pretty smart move IMO.

The fact that IBM is pursuing a partnership with the leading provider of digital worlds is a leap for IBM and a real indication of IBM’s initiative to move out of business solutions and into consumer experiences. Although the world of business will continue to grow in virtual worlds, I think this is a pretty clear indication that IBM is beginning to focus on individual consumers more so than it has before.

please Sir Lamo dubs this ‘dumb’

IBM marketing is just trying to justify not having their budget pulled (and be fired) and 2ndLife is trying anything to keep the hype train moving hoping that Google buys them and add it to GoogleEarth

IBM ‘groping for tomorrow’

DSL - I totally agree. I have never really been a SL fan, especially since I discovered http://www.citypixel.com to fill my virtual world fix.