Googling further on the topic I saw an interesting study by Accenture on “User-Generated Content Is Top Threat to Media and Entertainment Industry”.

The study goes on say that such content will continue to grow and the user will gain:
* Increased power – As he can now create more content and hence can direct where a social network would grow. While the study did not examine Virtual Worlds – I would submit that a similar trend would be visible in this space too. With a far more impact being felt in such Virtual Worlds
* Increased control – The user can direct what kind of content can be published.

At this point I would aim to classify such UGC into two key categories
* Individual directed Content – This content is targeted to Avatar customizations, the way your avatar looks, dresses, walks, talks. Where are the areas that are visited, what kind of content is bought out and is used actively and also the social network of other Avatars he or she interacts with.
* Environment directed Content - This content is specifically targeted to creating the environments in which these Avatars interact in with regard to the Virtual Worlds. So whether it is a fancy art gallery or a pub or even a retail store of the future.

Different Virtual Worlds have taken different view points on the level of freedom that they give their Users with creating the above two types of content. While most Virtual Worlds give Users the chance to create Individual Oriented Content, many limit the amount content that can be Environment-directed.

One of my favourite Virtual World – Doppelganger’s vSide actually limits the amount of content that one can create from an Environment perspective.

Usually there is a cost associated with each of the types of content.
* So while Second Life requires you to have a Premium membership to buy land, you dont need one to create content whether Individual / Environment oriented.
* Doppelganger on the other hand requires you to buy individual content and has little or no flexibility with the customizations one can do from an environment based.

We see differing revenue models too.
* While Linden Labs (the creators of Second Life) have very limited custom content created by them other than the main archipelago they have a revenue model where they make money out of allowing people to create Environment oriented Content.
* Doppelganger on the other hand has a revenue model which is targeted specifically towards Individual based Content and makes money out of such sales and partnerships.

An older article by Robin Good says that “UGC is online content publishers most promising future” and I accept his thesis, however which sphere will lead to more revenues remains to be seen.

I conclude quoting from the Search Engine Roundtable :
“1) Users spend a lot of time in UGC (user generated content)

2) Consumers expect to be able to make their own content

3) Consumers trust user generated content

4) Product reviews increase sales

5) Increases conversions”

And hence UGC will become the key determining criteria for Virtual Worlds

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Today, I celebrate my (Second Life avatar’s) Rez Day. I entered Second Life last year on August 21, 2006. I am called Locutus Qi in this space. The name is inspired from my Star Trek fanaticism about the Borg. Locutus was the (avatar) name of Capt. Jean Luc Picard when he was captured by the Borg.

I remember going to Prithwis Da for learning about Virtual Worlds. I remember initially thinking this is so close to Counter Strike & Age of Empires that I used to play avidly in my college days in a multi-player environment. It was interesting to know these 3D environments and I could begin to see how they could be leveraged to business as well. Post that, I kept exploring Second Life and what it had to offer, when finally in December, when I was part of the Sears Second Life Build Team where I began more mainstream work. Henceforth, I have presented several papers / countless presentations around how Virtual Worlds can be leveraged for Business. And importantly, I worked on getting the first projects for IBM India in this space and currently manage several internal and external projects for IBM in this space of Virtual Worlds.
Well, recently a lot of the weaknesses of Second Life have been discussed in the various forums like Time naming it the Worst (#5) website. Also an old post by Eric Kintz about he still needs to be convinced about the use of Second Life. Well, I feel we have truly started to see the Trough of Disillusionment for this technology. We saw Second Life miraculously increase from 800,000 to 8 million registered users (whether that is for people who registered or not, is a topic of much debate. Giff Constable wrote an interesting article on that). And more recently the banning of Second life gambling joints by Linden Labs and the subsequent bankruptcy of Ginko bank. Well despite all this, Second Life as a world has taken leaps around Evangelizing what Virtual Worlds can be and should be in this space (interesting thoughts by Prokofy Neva & Gwyneth Llewelyn on LL’s actual business).

I feel SL showed how user-generated content could be so much in quantity and quality. It gave people – avatars to dress and design content around how they feel; established a virtual economy that exchanges USD 1.5+ million a day. They might not be the first in either of these but have been a compulsive case of what these concepts together with a 3D environment could do to the Internet. Suddenly the chip companies have an application to feed all the muscle they can pump into their processors, graphics cards, etc. The high amount of bandwidth is suddenly being channelized to this virtual environment which consumes it with ease and provides a compelling example. Is this the application that fuels the Information Revolution further ?

Well one clear thing, Second life does start to touch the surface and the broad idea of things to come, how corporates, individuals & the communities build these concepts further is something that remains to be seen…

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

An interesting article as a precursor was Gartner warning companies to carefully evaluate the use of public Virtual Worlds like Second Life.

My takeaway from the discussion was that Second life is a great public Virtual World. It gives companies the opportunity to see what Social Collaboration & socially compatible 3D visualization can do. It opens the door for them to see the vast options that this medium of information exchange provides. However it is just that, Second Life is in my opinion, is limited as an Enterprise tool for Virtual Worlds. The lack of confidentiality, stability can usually be root-cause-analyzed into putting it behind the Firewall. I feel the moment that Linden Labs propose a model for putting this behind the firewall, a lot of companies will become very interested. Suddenly we have the equivalents for a Public & Private Internet together with common interface.

At this point, the most typical question that is raised is what will be the business model of Linden Labs, I speculate even if they open source the servers, as long as they control the authorizing and the maintain the role of a gate-keeper they can continue to get good returns on their investments. As one hand they control the servers in the public sphere and charge private companies for the same and connectivity to the public world as required.