Technocrat

Building Better Collaboration One Avatar at a Time

zogger
Sun May 11 16:15:42 -0700 2008
Computers
manage

There's no doubt that virtual worlds are very popular for gaming, but increasingly businesses are also using them for meetings, updates, and just a better way to communicate with a workforce spread out around the planet.

.." This problem isn't confined to IBM, whose 386,000 employees often find themselves working with people from Boston to Bangalore to Beijing. It affects any company where telecommuting, outsourcing and globalization have spread the staff across cultures and time zones."

ed.z.: Worth it, compared to good quality video conferencing? Are created images better than the real thing? Or is it that gaming is just so popular with computer and IT folks that this is a better fit?

Building Better Collaboration One Avatar at a Time
Angus McInnes
Mon May 12 02:10:07 -0700 2008
 manage
So basically what they're saying is that communicating online via text or audio while viewing a useless 3D graphic of two people sitting next to each other is somehow more effective than doing the same thing without a useless 3D graphic? I find that unlikely.
Building Better Collaboration One Avatar at a Time
KlaymenDK
Tue May 13 00:32:39 -0700 2008
 manage

Me too. Call me old-fashioned, but I just need to get/pass along information, not "have an experience" doing it.

Smileys are nice and all, but the corporate IM app has been steadily increasing in complexity over the last 10 years -- so much so that it can no longer be called "instant". And that's just plain Wrong.

For leisure and social needs, fine. But I can't see how a VR interface would help in what is essentially a computer-centric work environment (e.g. showing ms. Tribbiani where the "Configure" menu is; that's done most easily with a simple screenshot or netmeeting, but would most likely just become needlessly roundabout and confusing if we were to be two avatars, standing in front of a rendering of her pc, and me pointing to the menu).

Maybe I miss the point; I still haven't figured out what Second Life is for. I really feel I'm getting old.
 

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