What does it feel like to have a meeting in a 3D virtual scene?
The large-scale travel restrictions caused by the epidemic situation may have an important impact on the business meeting field. “Second Life” CEO Ebbe Altberg said: “Travel restrictions will reset the business meeting mode. It is not enough to just see each other’s face from the webcam. People are more eager to meet in physical space.” According to the latest survey by the Global Business Travel Association , about 40% of companies expect business travel to resume within the next three months. But if the epidemic continues, that wish may be difficult to fulfill.
According to foreign media reports, Linden Lab, the development company of the 3D virtual community Second Life, is launching Dedicated website To attract companies to use their platform as a virtual business meeting place, Linden Lab insists that this transformation is not a vulgar marketing tool. Altberg added, “This is neither opportunistic nor gimmicky, and we are providing better remote conference solutions for the urgent needs of the enterprise side.”
(Image source: Second Life Linden Lab)
“Second Life” is a pioneer of the 3D virtual world. It was developed in 2003. There are no judgement criteria in the community to determine winning or losing. userThe only behavior is to experience the virtual world, develop, create and participate in various personal and collective activities including business. At the time, this avant-garde philosophy allowed the platform to gain more than 1 million active users in 2007. But with the development of social media, “Second Life” is no longer brilliant and has stalled in business, but this 17-year-old platform still has a group of loyal users.
“Second Life” event service platform provides virtual conference, party and classroom space solutions. The platform provides 3D virtual conference space including a city hall that can accommodate about 240-300 people, an auditorium about 290-350 people, and There are large conference centers, etc., and provide customized services for different scenarios. In addition, users can freely define their own appearance and dress in 3D scenes, interact with others and communicate through text and space voice chat. The platform has reached cooperation with some enterprises and educational institutions.
Facing travel restrictions, companies are looking for more effective remote conferencing methods to replace the traditional face-to-face model. There are already many effective tools in the teleconferencing field, such as Zoom, Skype or Google Hangouts. The epidemic has also led to the development of some entrepreneurial formulas, such as the Hopin , etc. Compared with regular office software, “Second Life” provides users with a more immersive way. “It is more interesting than looking at a face through a webcam and may change business behavior.”
(Source: Second Life Linden Lab)
The scene in the movie “Number One Player” is the future that countless people yearn for. In 2020, compared to 2003 when “Second Life” was established, the public’s perception of virtual space has turned upside down, and the virtual economy has penetrated into more life scenes. . Foreign virtual game platform Roblox has more than 100 million teenage users with a valuation of about 4 billion U.S. dollars; Facebook announced its VR virtual community Horizon will be officially launched in 2020; Japan’s virtual event service platform that provides users with VR performances and virtual idolsTaiwan Cluster completed its Series C financing in January.
Interestingly, Cluster founder Nato Kato once said that the platform has learned from the feature settings ” The lesson of “Second Life” space is thinning. And the 17-year-old “lesson itself” “Second Life” transformation of remote event service providers is to see the opportunities brought by the epidemic, but also understand the forced transformation of the main business after many years of stagnation. At present, the “Second Life” service has not been equipped with a headset. How to improve user experience is the key to future development. The popularity of 5G technology is expected to bring better solutions for enterprises.