At IBM’s Analyst Insights conference last week, I attended a session led by Ian Hughes, whose business card proclaims him to be IBM’s “Metaverse Evangelist”. “What’s a Metaverse?” you might be asking. Well, if I understand Ian correctly, it’s a virtual world. Ian is convinced that Metaverses are the way of the future and me, well I’m skeptical, as you might have gathered from my Campaign for Real Life – if you happened to have visited that page of this site.

To my mind, Ian confirmed my dismay at “people who think avatars are the way of the future”, by announcing that in Second Life, he wears a Predator suit (as in Predator, the movie) and “can go invisible”. I’m not sure how “being invisible” is useful in a virtual world, but there again I’m not sure that being visible in a virtual world is much use either, from a business perspective.

I’m not sure how “being invisible” is useful in a virtual world, but there again I’m not sure that being visible in a virtual world is much use either…

OK, let’s cut to the chase. I’m not that skeptical. I don’t think Ian is wasting his time. Investigating a virtual world is legitimate research. He’s discovered that when avatars are arranged in loose groups, they chat, when arranged in a circle at a table they have “meetings” and when arranged in a seminar format with one at the front, all the others listen, etc. Are you surprised? I doubt it.

I spent a whole afternoon in Second Life myself, and only logged off when some stark naked female avatar went rushing by screaming “how do I get some clothes on?”. I just don’t want something like that to happen to me on the way to a business meeting. (A stark naked Second Life avatar, by the way, is only exciting to the desperate.)

Virtual worlds are excellent game playing environments and thus could be excellent educational environments. Aside from that, a metaverse is only useful because it’s a genuine 3D environment. So:

1. It can be a very effective 3D workspace. All 3D applications take note!
2. Having an avatar (of some kind) in such a workspace is necessary. It becomes a kind of cursor or pointer. Actually it’s a view-point.
3. Genuine business-oriented virtual worlds will evolve for the sake of collaboration. It might even be the next evolutionary step for collaborative activity.
4. Being dressed like a Predator adds nothing to any of this.

My campaign for real life, is not an attempt to derail the business use of virtual worlds, it’s an attempt to stop such usage from being frivolous and diversionary – i.e. unproductive.

We’re done here (for the moment).