The Innovation Blog by Pranab Sharma

Yesterday night, Nick Wilson (aka: 57 Miles)from the Metaversed.com team invited Steve Prentice from Gartner to defend the “80% of Active Internet Users to have a Second Life” statement that they made in April 2007. The event happened at the Metaversed Stadium in Second Life. Portraying the sheer interest in the event, the Sim was already packed 15-20 mins before the event actually started ; 9 mins before no more folks could come in. We had folks who were at the edge of the sim and using Camera Controls to listen to the conversation. As always despite Skype down after the longest of times (interesting microblogging (ie twittering) by Luis on the defending Skype which other service serves 8.5 million users with VoIP live reliably). The event was hence done over Second life Voice. The main participants along with Steve were a Rob Bloomfield (aka Beyers Sellers), Professor from Cornell Business School, Joel Greenberg from Electric Sheep, and Fiona Gallagher (Fiona May) from Sun. There was parallel twitter based discussion happening with Craig Cmehill & GoldieKatsu leading the discussion there. Again, well organized & congrats for the great turn-out to the Metaversed team.

In my opinion, the event gave Gartner a platform to justify their prediction. They went about it by citing that they didnt really break-down Active internet users. Steve suggested after doing some clever calculations on broadband internet users and came up with a figure of 250-300m users of Virtual Worlds as their (clarified) prediction. I would use Paul Saffo’s concept of Macro-Myopia. We dont realize how quickly the world may get computerized. The way the usage of internet has been rising, also the increasing teledensity of the BRIC countries. I heard that New Delhi has a mind-boggling teledesnity of 93% (living here I never thought we’d ever be near that mark), and with convergence happening all over, I expect the Internet being more and more used. Thus I believe this number will grow more by the day. However at the same time, I agree with comments from one of the panelist that VW have a typical use for certain things like Google is great for searching. I dont require VW for checking into a Airport when I am in rush (or do I). Essentially it will all become one big pool, where VW are suited for one kind of thing and 80% of users may use that. I predict it to be a much larger pie.

Another thought that caught my attention was that of Personal Branding, the Cornell prof felt that ‘Public’ VW are a great advertisement for such branding, however Corporates will not be interested. I differ that going forward I expect Companies / Corporates embracing the Personal Identity of the user as much as the overall Corporate brand. The Corporate Brand could be identified with the strong personal brands. For example, in the space of VWs, Epredator is a well known Individual brand, at the same time the overall brand of IBM in this space is enhanced by the personal brand.

Inviting your thoughts & comments !

Other coverages of the event here:

• Gartner goes 57 Miles to clarify their position Tateru Nino
• Gartner explains VW stance on Metaversed Panel Amalthea Blanc