When it comes to business-focused virtual platforms, customers typically have to choose between platforms that are completely customizable and difficult to use, or easy to use but not particularly customizable. The recent crop of Web-based, enterprise-friendly virtual environments like VenueGen,Web.alive, Assemblive, ReactionGrid’s Jibe, and 3DXplorer have made great strides in the direction of usability. The previous generation of virtual world platforms – ProtoSphere, Teleplace, and SAIC’s Olive — requires that the software be installed on corporate servers, and that end users download heavy clients. Read full article at Internet Evolution. … Read entire article »

As travel budgets continue to stay tight, virtual meeting platforms are gaining in both financial appeal and usability. However, as the choices multiply, it can be difficult to choose the right tools for the job. Every company should have some kind of videoconferencing system in place for very small meetings, whether it’s a simple Skype connection or a Cisco telepresence room, or a feature included in its unified communications infrastructure. Every company should also have picked a Webconference platform for making online presentations to employees, customers, and investors. And companies should be considering the use of immersive 3D platforms for training or collaboration. Read full article at Internet Evolution.   … Read entire article »

More and more companies are going virtual, which allows employees to telecommute, work from the road, and be based anywhere on the planet. This approach saves money in office costs, improves productivity and morale, and allows the company to benefit from accessing talent in low-cost countries. But how can a company provide technology to these far-flung employees? These days, the answer is to use cloud services. Read full article at Internet Evolution.   … Read entire article »

Many companies, both small and large, are wary of doing business with cloud providers because of concerns about outages, data loss, and privacy issues. These are all serious concerns, but addressing them is a straightforward process. For example, many cloud providers undergo security audits (the most famous of these is SAS 70), and many are compliant with SEC, HIPAA, and other regulations. Since cloud applications providers such as Salesforce.com focus on just one thing — providing that one application in a Web-based environment — they can typically focus many more resources on solving associated security problems than their typical customers. Few small and medium-sized firms, however, can afford to hire security PhDs or monitor network traffic around the clock. The big cloud service providers do just that, and they spend a great … Read entire article »

If I told you that in the future we’d all be living in a virtual world, chances are you’d imagine one of the following two scenarios: The dystopia. We’ll be living in a virtual world created by some outside organization. Like Disney, say, or the government, or our alien overlords. (It’s hard to say which would be worse.) Our possibilities in the world would be severely constrained, and our primacy trammeled. It would be hell, and there would be no escape, since our environment would have been destroyed by pollution and global warming — or occupied by aliens. The paradise. We’ll be living in a virtual world completely of our own creation. Everything will be perfect, just the way we want it. All other occupants of the world would be our own creations … Read entire article »

If you’re thinking about trying out virtual, immersive environments for your business meetings or training sessions, but find Second Life and OpenSim too difficult, and ProtoSphere andTeleplace too expensive, you might want to take a look at some business-focused, browser-based virtual worlds. The idea is that you send someone a link, they click on it, and, maybe after downloading a plugin, they’re in the world, ready for your meeting. No software to install, no complex interfaces to learn. Don’t expect to see the same breadth of features as you do in a full, standalone world, however. In fact, calling it a “world” would be a misnomer, since there’s no world in there, as such — just your meeting room. Read full article at Internet Evolution.   … Read entire article »

Last year, folks spent more than $7 billion on virtual goods, according to research firm In-Stat . Crazy, huh? Why would people spend so much money on stuff that doesn’t exist? I, myself, would never pay extra to get a computer-generated fish in a new color for my iPhone fish tank. The green “exotic” fish doesn’t have more intrinsic value than the blue “starter” fish. They’re both just collections of pixels. So why are people shelling out the big bucks for fancy virtual fish, rare virtual plants, and extinct virtual birds? The full article at Internet Evolution.   … Read entire article »