Just a few years ago there was a flurry of activity to create virtual digital worlds such as Linden Labs’ Second Life for interaction in spaces some call the metaverse. At that point in time, the prediction was that these worlds would far surpass Facebook and MySpace as the places that we’d want to gather and interact. The thinking was that the almost real-life interpersonal connections in these virtual worlds would cause us to congregate. The flurry of early adoption hasn’t sustained, and if anything we’re far less virtual but more constantly connected today.
The virtual reality of a metaverse requires a great deal of programming, data creation and design in order to approximate reality and become a compelling experience. The time and resources needed for such an effort is a hard thing to justify without a clear understanding of rewards, but that barrier has yet to stop almost all other Internet fads. Perhaps it’s the complexity of the user experience to date, and the chaos of the commons that’s holding the idea back. The metaverse is not an ‘if’ scenario, it’s a ‘when’ scenario and it’s interesting to think about how it will come about.
Digital Earth Momentum
All of the metaverse activity has direct ties to the geospatial concept of a Digital Earth where we will model our world more closely, incorporating science in order to continue to expand our knowledge about Earth systems, and share insights along with interactions in virtual space. The interactive 3D environments that use avatars for interaction seem to be on the wane, but that sort of interface has always been part of the Digital Earth vision.
The concept of stepping into a digital reality to interact with data and others provides a means for collaborative knowledge building. Gathering to learn and share knowledge such as a in a digital classroom or online event goes beyond the social interactions to achieve the “collaboratory” vision.
This Digital Earth dream remains relevant today, but is a long way from being realized. Geographic information explorers such as Google Earth, Microsoft Bing Maps for Enterprise, and ArcGIS Explorer explore what’s possible to extend beyond a 2D map representation, but they’re far from the realism of the vision and they lack interactive elements .
More than 140 Characters
By far the most popular social media tool right now for online interaction is Twitter. While Twitter offers quick connections to like-minded individuals, and the ability to create community links, it’s far from the rich social interaction that’s envisioned in the metaverse. The limit to 140 characters creates terse back and forth exchanges with links to outside content, but no real dialogue.
The idea of collaboratory spaces with interactions to solve problems requires a much richer user experience and exchange of materials than is available through current online tools. One recent new technology that starts to come close on interaction and idea sharing is HP’s “visual collaboration” SkyRoom. The new site allows for multiple people to work together using 3D visualization software.
The idea of sharing complex 3D models across the Internet with colleagues across the globe is a very compelling first step toward the richer idea of the metaverse. HP starts to reveal the benefits of rich, high-definition interactions that include audio, video and a design space for manipulation of 3D models between collaborators.
The kinds of complex problems that we face today require an interactive multimedia space like this. Imagine sharing rich 3D models of scientific data or models of better buildings or better infrastructure. There are barriers today for allowing even real-time model sharing within the same office. Imagine the possibilities when these barriers come down for interaction across the entire globe.
My sincere hope is that the next online collaboration and social media fad will take us in the direction of much richer interaction. Rather than constantly monitoring a stream of distracting information, it would be great to move toward more seldom but richer interaction. I’d love to experience the metaverse in my lifetime, and our planet desperately needs a collective knowledge base with rich problem-solving interactions.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
One of the issues I had with this type of application was that I quickly became tired of it. Trying to have some sort of serious communication in a virtual world can be incredibly boring. Who wants to pay for or support an experience that sort of collapses after the virtual business meeting is over.
The virtual worlds that have succeeded so far are different. World of Warcraft is an environment that promotes collaboration and interaction of any type supported by the developer. The developer made it fun.
Eve Online has a sandbox feel. The economy, the objects, everything is built by players. You can be a thug or a prince with no real world risks at all. So the developers tap into what we would be if we could be anything at all with no negative consequences.
I have a hard time getting my mind around a virtual world that could be as interactive and high speed as twitter. Twitter seems to work in a very similar way to our thought process. When you add visuals you might have a very hard time holding anyone’s attention because actions will have to take much longer that 140 char bursts of information.
OK, I’m doing a stream of consciousness comment
hope is makes just a bit of sense 
Hi Matt,
I followed Justin here after he Tweeted that he had commented. The subject is one of interest to me . Besides coming here from Twitter, I’m putting off taking a break into Second Life in order to come here and comment instead… if you ever go in-world, I’m ChristopherBest Daviau.
First let me thank you for taking the time to write this article (also skimmed a few other while I was here).
I understand where your coming from, but I’m more optimistic.
Consider that the engagement time in Twitter is very low commitment. Now, some people like myself or Justin or some others (maybe you), frankly people who’s business it is to be on top of these sort of technology trends, may invest quite a lot of time in Twitter at once. But for the average user twitter is given as much time investment as checking their watch from time-to-time.
SecondLife requires (and receives) a time commitment from its user-base that other platforms could only dream of (and turns a handsome profit as well, unlike, say Twitter).
True, the graphical experience is indeed not yet where it needs to be. But it is in a constant state of improvement. And just this week Linden Lab rolled out their private Virtual World platform for the enterprise.
Like you, I also favor a more immersive, rich interaction experience. I’m quite convinced it will get there. Have a look at KZero’s Radar report and it will make you feel better:
http://tr.im/kzero_v6
On another note, I don’t think Second Life, or frankly any emerging technology can be separated from the hype machine of the marketing departments that build them up before running off to the next new, new thing. But that’s a whole other story.
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog.
cheers,
Chris
PS. I invite you to join the conversation sometime over at my blog, GigantiCo.
Justin and Chris,
Thank you both for your thoughtful comments. I appreciate the time and effort that you’ve both put into exploring and understanding these virtual worlds. Admittedly I need to thoroughly explore Second Life as I’m truly excited about it’s constant evolution and improvement with it’s solid business plan. Chris, I think I’ll take you up on that in-world invitation… as soon as the Holiday craziness is over.
I will take these well thought out critiques into account as my team develops next generation virtual world applications.
Part of the problem is the paradigm has been defined by social media definitions when in fact data visualization in new, simpler ways, engineering model mockups, telemetry integration with real world machinery, disaster training, complex logisitical data such as fleet dispersement & asset locations, tracking and control & many more ROI based solutions can be done in addition to collaboration of disparate teams.
Try out your own ideas with BSD licensed http://opensimulator.org or http://unity3d.com which we are teaching in our own virtual world http://reactiongrid.com . Thank you all for putting real thought into the future of virtual worlds.
I’ve been playing with Twinity, which is basically Second Life but in a real city with a relatively high level of detail. Even with my fast computer, the interface is painfully slow and how is Berlin relevant to me who lives in the US? Something doesn’t quite click in interaction, either, but I can’t put my finger on it.
One cool thing they did recently was to recreate pre-1989 Berlin in commemoration of the fall of the wall. Your character can walk around and see what it looked like in 3d. It gives a whole new meaning to Checkpoint Charlie and what it was like to live there, to me at least.
Hoping forthcoming worlds offer fun, usability, speed and, most importantly, context.