Fortune magazine senior editor David Kirkpatrick is just out with an article on the future of Second Life, noting:
…what’s beginning to catch the attention of IBM and other huge corporations is something potentially far more profound than a new online pastime. It’s the ability to use Second Life as a platform for a whole new Net-this one in 3-D and even more social than the original-with huge opportunities to sell products and services.
Exactly, although I’m not 100% convinced that whole new Net will be based on the Second Life engine. But to me, it’s a whole lot more intuitive to navigate down a street, into a building, and into a room to buy a product than it is to click through left-hand navigation panels. Plenty of writers of speculative fiction (e.g., William Gibson, Neal Stephenson) have predicted this development.
You don’t have to get excited about the culture of Second Life as it now exists in order to understand that the underlying idea could well be the kernel of the Internet’s next significant evolution. The reason to embrace Second Life now is to understand the principles so your organization can be ready when the transition begins. (Remember all those companies that shrugged off the Web for years saying, “Who needs a website?”)
I think that transition is inevitable, although I certainly could be wrong, but here’s the issue: If I’m right and your organization hasn’t figured it out, you’ll be playing catch-up while your competitors are out in front. If I’m wrong, you really haven’t lost anything.
Anyway, read the article. No registration required.
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Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.
