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The initial seed

Page history last edited by Ian Hughes/epredator 15 years, 4 months ago

Back in 2006 after the first Wimbledon tennis event in Second Life I wrote this piece about the future we might see with virtual worlds and

 

Title

Virtual Worlds and Metaverses for Olympics 2012

 

Body

The current landscape

This year, 2006, has seen a very significant social and technological development that have been brought on by a number of factors. This trend has been sparked by the existence and use of Second Life by Linden Labs.

Second Life has grown massively mindshare, publicity, focus and user base. Having been up and running for 3 years, in January 2006 there were only 90,000 users. The current registered user base is 1.5 million. Second Life is a virtual world or metaverse. Metaverse is a term coined from Neil Stephenson’s book Snowcrash, and equates to the use of the word cyberspace for the Web.

Before we project forward to 2012 we have to look at what has and is happening now in 2006 and why.

Firstly we have to consider the games market. Once regarded as solely the preserve of teenage boys locked in bedrooms it has exploded into a multi billion dollar industry to rival Hollywood. Several attributes need to be considered. The original gamers are now parents, so gamers are raising gamers. The gaming industry has expanded to widen its market and not deal solely in first person shooters and action games. The technology to power games has become very much cheaper not high end PC’s. Games are increasingly designed as a social experience. Multiplayer online capability is put into almost every game, handhelds have wireless gaming, consoles have access to wireless and broadband. People expect to have their entertainment experience shared with others either in cooperation or competition.

The games consoles themselves are all powered by processors co-developed with IBM. The Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii are Power PC based and the Sony Playstation 3 powered by the new Cell chip. This indicates the serious business of games.

Games themselves, as a driver of innovation have moved from pure scripted entertainment to very customizable user created experiences. Whilst this started as a PC bedroom coding movement it is now very much part of gameplay to be able to alter and change your experiences within an environment, make characters resemble you and your friends. Games have to suit game play style, time and skill to ensure that the players of the game have plenty to explore.

Secondly we have to consider the rise of Web 2.0 concepts. This encompasses a great number of ideas, and is not just a flashy website. In Web 2.0 the concept of user created combinations of existing services has developed. This has the trendy name of "mashup". Many companies provide more than a website for their information they provide a data feed (such as RSS) or some simple widely available programming interface or web service. This enables people to use various tools to assemble the pieces of information they want together on a web page, where the various feeds are happy to interact with one another and create new function. E.g. Google provide map services that are able to simply accept a postcode over the web and return a map with pins representing the position of any data. So provide a list of where things are that can be dragged onto the map and you have a Geographic Information system.

Along with mashups we have the entire trend of user created content. Websites used to be created by large companies and news organizations. Over time people created their own websites to inform their friends. This evolved into the blog (weblog) a now well trodden route for people to communicate thoughts and gather a readership. In this case the technology is very simple, and it’s the users content that counts. Blogs are used for all sorts of communication styles and when a blog starts to gain a readership that readership will feel engaged and part of something and start to contribute too.

Within Web2.0 we can also consider the Wiki. A wiki is simple set of web pages that is open to be edited and created by its readership. Once again this can sound a chaotic, error fraught way to gather a common message. In reality it has worked very well for many things. The prime example is http://wikipedia.org. This wiki is an encyclopedia of everything written by the world. It works because people contribute their writing on a small topic of expertise. Other people augment that with their additions and corrections. The entire thing then self organizes, because of the scale of the web and the willingess of people to want to communicate knowledge to others. It is self repairing because if someone chooses to adjust some text incorrectly there is enough of a community around that specific piece that they will overcome the error. Typically the authors being informed of changes via feed mechanisms such as RSS. i.e. you just get told your piece has changed and what has happened without having to visit the wiki. An analogy with Wiki’s can be drawn with the entire open source movement, whilst originally aimed at building software products the open source collaborative approach is being applied to banking, government, cars and geneology. Open source development of products has had to be embraced by the software industry and has helped to drive open standards and interoperation.

Also within Web 2.0 consider social computing as a major thread. Again a wide subject but represented by people linking with others over a subject or common goal. Myspace.com being a prime example of teenagers hanging out, and showing which band they like, and who their friends are. Linkedin.com being a business network along the same lines to enable contacts to be made through friends of friends.

The final consideration is that people are familiar with the web as a platform, business works on it, education works on it and entertainment works on it. To "Google" has entered many languages as a verb. Ebay as a market place has swept a large part of the world. People are more than happy to spend money over the web and make purchases with Amazon. Many places have seen a massive explosion in broadband and wireless broadband. For the purpose of social inclusion many community wireless schemes have started to spring up. Norwich, UK has a wireless hot spot almost everywhere in the city. Whilst the world has still not caught up with South Korea on connectivity it is changing drastically. South Korea has half of all the wireless hotspots in the world and a complete online culture including professional gamers.

 

Virtual Worlds and the natural extension of the web.

It is this landscape that Second Life hit. It uses game technology to provide a virtual world, but relies on the wiki paradigm that allows the users to create their own content. It then, using a real currency with a real world exchange rate, allows user to sell their content to other people. So we have a 3d wiki with user created content, suitable for broadband with a built in economy with people happy to create and provide for others as well as consume. The residents are also not all gamers, as Second Life does not provide a gaming buzz, unless you write a game in it.

The single most important thing that this brings though is the presence of others. When you are present at a 3d location, unlike the web, you become part of that 3d space typically through a 3d representation of your persona called an avatar. Due to being present with others the experiences become shared with people close to your location. Hence users can collaborate, communicate and experience a much richer experience.

In gaming terms, at this point in time, the visuals of Second Life are relative low fidelity. However the addition of other people, and ability to create content live in the environment seems to make for a much more engaging experience. The avatar acts as a social proxy, it allows people to communicate both through text and non verbally such as gestures or standing closer in a way that we do not get in "normal" games or collaboration software. The avatar as a proxy appears to work more effectively than video conferences. People are more willing to communicate, and more able to multi task in their Web 2.0 instant messaging world. That is not to say that they do not pay attention to one another, but it does allow and interleaving of communications and media consumptions.

 

Second Life Sports examples already done

As an example of what has already been done this year in Second Life we can look at two examples of sports events that have been recreated within the virtual world of Second Life.

Wimbledon is one of IBM’s prime sports event sponsorships along with the other tennis grand slams. We host the website for the championship and provide much of the data as the official technology partner. Over the years have increased the amount of real time data that we push out to the internet for consumption of our users. In 1998 we were peaking at 144,000 hits per minute, whilst we do not count hits any more in the same way we are well into the millions of hits per minute this year. So in 8 years we have seen a massive increase in the expectation and consumption of the web data.

We have gone from simply providing point by point live within seconds to anywhere on the web to a richer web experience showing the track of the ball, the strokes played and up to date statistics. All weaved in with photos, video and news stories. We have over 5 million users in the 2 weeks all experiencing the elements that suit them. However, the experience is still solitary, 1 user 1 web page. This year we produced a proof of concept in Second Life. Using the same ball tracking data as the web scoreboard. We produced a virtual full size tennis court, that showed the path of the ball in 3d space to all the users present at the virtual event. So we are able to sit on centre court, watch the match whilst sitting next to the virtual representations of our friends who are viewing the same content at the same time. This is as close to being at the real event as we have yet got. There were many other examples of Second Life content, Wimbledon shirts and hats etc, but the showpiece was real data into the virtual world. A full write up is

here

 

Another example, following closely afterwards, was the opening game of the Major League Baseball Season. MLB.Com engaged the virtual design agency Electric Sheep Company to produce a virtual stadium. Tickets to attend the event were sold on a regular website. People then attended the event and watched, together, both a video feed on a screen and a virtual representation of the players at the various bases in the 3d environment. The event had a great deal of chat and interaction between the customers and made it engaging for those who had less passion for baseball.

 

So we are now able, due to the increase in instrumentation and data gathering within sports environments to replay events and change a virtual world either in real time, or as a historical replay. We are also able to consume regular web media, streaming video and audio within a shared environment. We are also able not just visit an event but take it away with us. E.g. the Wimbledon tennis court is a gadget that can be taken away to another space, it can even be reduced in size and worn as a virtual hat.

 

 

2012 – What will happen

Major companies, such as IBM, have already stated that they are investing significant effort and money in understanding metaverse technologies such as Second Life in the drive to v-business not just e-business. We have seen the web become pervasive and "Web2.0" in about 10 years. i.e. accepted and expected by a large portion of the population. The 3d web has arrived in less than 3 years and in reality has exploded in 9 months.

So in 5-6 years time?

We can expect to see that the pervasiveness of the 3d web has taken the vast share of the web. That is not to say that web pages cease to exists but Second Life is actively starting to embed web pages onto the surfaces of 3d objects. So if you want to browse a website you can in full screen zoomed in 3d.

The quality of the user experience will drastically improve as gaming technology rotates into mainstream ‘business’ usage allowing for photo realism and a high fidelity experience. Once again that is not to say everything has to be photo realistic we still need graphs and diagrams. We will be on at least the start of the next generation of games consoles with another expected leap in experience.

The 3d experience and user interface will start to drive new interactions, this may not be VR headsets returning, but may be simple web cams gathering mood from a user and projecting those emotions via a hi fidelity avatar. Items such as the Nintendo Wii remote that sense position and allow for more 3d interaction will become standard, as will multi touch displays.

The MySpace generation, currently 12-13 will be starting to entire both higher education and the workplace with even more expectation of the serious representations of data and user experience.

The question is will the consumer for the Olympics want to just sit in front of a TV, or a solitary Web page or will they want to feel part of the Olympics and their favourite event?

Will I be able to be able to see the men’s 100m from any angle whilst sitting next to my friends from around the world?

Will I be able to play badminton against the world champion in a simulation where the simulation plays in the ‘style of’ the world champion so that I get to appreciate the actual match when I see it?

Will I be able to capture my highlights and show them to my friends at work during lunch?

Will I be able to timeshift my favourite events so that I can watch them as if they were live?

Will I be able to sit at the real event but still have access to my virtual world to provide an augmented reality giving me more information that I might see in the real world.

Will I be able to have a real life model of the winning duck at the line of my countries top athlete? E.g.

http://eightbar.co.uk/2006/11/21/fab-fabjectory/

Many of these can already be dealt with as of today on what is a fledgling platform in Second Life. By 2012 the Second Life novelty will have gone, but the serious business of the 3d web and crossover of real and virtual data will be in full swing. We, the industry, will have scaled the technology and dealt with mass market issues, as we have done with the web.

 

 

The postings on this site are our own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions or any companies represented by contributors. This is an extended eightbar project for sharing ideas and driving change. 

 

 

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