Making The Second Life Connection

Visitors to IBM's main welcome island find themselves on Irving Wladawsky-Berger Boulevard, a long thoroughfare named after the company's technical strategy and innovation evangelist. Immediately, they're presented with a 3D map of Big Blue's various Second Life destinations -- Lotusphere, SOA Hub, PartnerWorld Virtual Ecosystem, and the OpenSource/Open Standards.

Second Life is a lot like a video game -- two or three generations ago. The graphics and movements are hardly the caliber of an Xbox or even the original PlayStation. And users feel like they're going in slow motion, especially those on slow connections or machines without a good graphics card.

Despite the kludginess of the interface, companies like IBM and individuals are gravitating to this virtual world for training, sales meetings and social networking. Rather than becoming the next eBay or Amazon, Second Life may become the next Comdex or regional tech seminar.

Vendor Second Life Outposts Second Life is quickly becoming home to several major IT vendors. The following are the coordinates for finding vendors with at least one or more islands in Second Life. AMD: 126.150.31 Cisco Systems: 17.6.22 Dell: 43.162.24 IBM: 106.6.23 Lenovo: 130.124.24 SunBelt Software: 104.161.22 Sun Microsystems: 167.157.91 UGS: 168.157.24 Navigating in Second Life takes practice. The easiest way to get around is through the "Search" function, which reveals all sites and user groups. However, Search doesn't always get you to where you want to go. The "Map" function also has a search which reveals just sites and allows users to enter specific coordinates for their destinations.

"This is an innovative platform for IBM," says Wong. "It's sparked a lot of creative thinking and thought on how to leverage it."

Land in any of IBM's islands and you'll likely find IBM staffers from around the world collaborating on projects, end users looking for information on the latest Series X launch, and partners engaged in a form of "speed dating," in which IBM facilitates meetings and partnerships among its worldwide solution providers.

"What makes it kind of cool is everyone is having fun; they're flying around and talking to one another," says Wong. "They don't have to do anything and they get introduced to new partners."

Many vendors are using Second Life as an alternative for group presentations and seminars for solution providers. Most of the major vendor sites have auditoriums where attendees can sit among their peers while viewing video, PowerPoint or audio presentations.

Why bother with cyberspace when you can view PowerPoints and presentations through Webex or some other conference bridge? The answer is the experience. Second Life attendees have all the rights and privileges of being at a life event except for physically being there. They can chat with their neighbors, peel off for a private meeting, collect collateral materials and even demo products. Best of all, people can randomly make connections with people they never would have met in real life.

"In 11 years, no one has ever bumped into me in the Cisco parking lot and asked me questions about Cisco, but it happens to me three times a day in Second Life," says Christian Renaud, Cisco Systems' chief architect for Network Virtual Environments.

Some may find the entire idea of wandering around a 3D world a little ridiculous, especially for adults and IT professionals. That perception is changing quickly. Cisco CEO John Chambers recently hosted the Linden Lab founders at his annual executives' conference, and IBM has committed more than $10 million to its Second Life effort. Other vendors, including Microsoft and Xerox, and even some solution providers are looking at creating Second Life outposts.

"We say how sad people are going in there, but we used to say the same about people who dated online and now more than 50 percent of the marriages last year were of couples who met over the Internet," Renaud says.

NEXT: Second Life's Third Act