Linden Labs product Second Life has competition brewing and making progress. Seemingly the new and sustainable frontier of virtual worlds is higher education, whose momentum is only growing. Using peer-reviewed academic journals as an indicator, there is a lot of research and interest in academia, even though "some" of the seniors and older boomers in higher ed are sure this is a passing fad. Kind of like...automobiles.
Back to the lack of guarantees in business, a competitor can take advantage of the king/queen of any market by preying on a product's weaknesses. Let's face it, SL is not intuitive, but it is powerful. It is hardly free to own an island, yet higher ed gets one for half price.
In the list below are some of the major players in the virtual world arena, although there are certainly others. Of note is OpenSim which is open source, and ReactionGrid which is going head to head with SL for education and business marketshare. Perhaps one of SL's competitors will keep better check on much of the anti-social behavior and sexuality found in Second Life, which steers quite a few people away. And again, the complexity issue must be overcome.
Anyway, the worlds below are interesting. Although not competing with SL's adult grid, check out Indiana University's Quest Atlantis. This is what the site says: Quest Atlantis (QA) is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-16, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. Participation in this game is designed to enhance the lives of children while helping them grow into knowledgeable, responsible, and empathetic adults.
ActiveWorlds
http://activeworlds.com/
Forterra
http://forterrainc.com/
OpenSim (open source)
http://opensimulator.org/
QuestAtlantis
http://questatlantis.org/
ReactionGrid
http://reactiongrid.com/
There
http://there.com/
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Will Second Life be replaced by a Competitor?
There are never guarantees in business. Well, unless a business stops marketing... You get the picture.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"Seniors and older boomers think VW's a passing fad?" Most of the academia folk that I know in SL ARE older boomers - including me! >humph<
ReplyDeleteGood blog - Quest Atlantis is amazing! Great for 4th graders through about 8th grade!
Well, adding more of the sentence it says "some of the seniors..."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment and for reading. You are well spoken.
Just a tiny point of clarification - Reactiongrid.com
ReplyDeleteis one of several "Opensim grid hosting services" using Opensim as their Virtual World Platform. But you are right, they do more than host, they also actively develop services for the education and business markets. I have several regions hosted on Reactiongrid for education purposes.
Thank you Mark for this article mentioning our love of using user created virtual worlds for teachers to experiment on with students to make math, history and more a little more fun and possibly more clear.
ReplyDeleteWe value & respect our peers at SecondLife/LL as we use their technology in the form of viewer code (Opensimulator is BSD licensed server code not related at all to SL/LL) except for several new projects launching now 100% from scratch by various developers.
Our company has been involved in education with 3D since 1995 where we used Bryce 3D, Solidworks & AutoCad, PV Wave, Excel & more to show how our aerospace parts were designed,built,tested and used. We have experience in ROI with 3D environments and tools and our approach is less social than collaboration tool building.
So yes we do see how we are looked at as competing for the hearts and minds of teachers and students in virtual worlds but we also want it known how much we respect the Lab and the technology they have shared to make OpenSimulator's launch possible.
Come see us inworld anytime for a chat!