swhitear

London

Consultant

Whilst the current wave of hysteria surrounding Second Life is classic tech bubble material, the underlying metaphor of the 3D web is here to stay.

Right now the experience is more suited to exploratory social interaction than anything else; reports of it's use as a sales channel, simulator for medical training, customer service portal (insert anything you like here) etc are mostly hype. Developments in the technology for avatar representation, communication and security (to name a few) are required to raise the platform above early adopter status.

Ultimately organisations may be better off hosting a more controlled 3D environment for existing customer interaction. Imagine; your company has a customer service centre hosted in Second Life, there are a number of customers there who have a legitimate reason to be disgruntled, what's stopping a competitor walking in and talking to them directly about their problems before suggesting they teleport to their own sales centre? It sounds like replacing your companies hold musak with advertisements for your competitors!