Virtual Worlds or/and Facebook?

In my last post I pointed out that networking is an important if not the most fascinating aspect of virtual worlds. Many even see Second Life as the new Facebook (Virtual worlds: The next Facebook? - CNN.com). Others do not see any good reason why Second life should replace Facebook (Facebook vs. Second Life: No Contest « Social Media University, Global (SMUG) )

Recently, the idea that both solutions complement each other emerged and there was significant effort to mesh up virtual worlds with social networking sites like activeworlds does with its facebook application.
Activeworlds launches virtual world Facebook application | VWF blog | Virtual Economic Forum Content Library
Activeworlds adds embedded 3D virtual worlds on Facebook platform | 901am
Besides being able to enter activeworlds from facebook, i do not think the app brings much new advantages. In contrast to that, the facebook app Second Life Link makes it possible to see whether your SL-friends are online in Second Life and to share your favorite SL location.

The idea behind Second Life Link is simple: meet new people in Second Life and stay in contact via Facebook. And indeed there is evidence that many Facebook users add only friends they had met in real life before. So how to get new contacts if you work in a multinational company and the most important persons for your project work and live on another continent? Virtual worlds provide an easy way to "bump" into people, that are far away.

Advantages of Virtual Worlds from a CSCW Perspective: Networking

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) Research has a long tradition in the evaluation of virtual worlds as possible tools for collaboration in geographically dispersed teams. One advantage of virtual worlds is that they can convey a broad spectrum of interactional cues to the user. Interacting with others as an avatar, the user can make gestures and move his avatar in a 3D space. However, in current conferencing tools like Acrobat Connect Professional or Skype, where one sees his colleagues using a camera, the transmission of gestures is much more real than in an virtual environment like Second Life.

Nevertheless, the spatial dimension of a real life meeting may get lost in such video conferences. The spatial dimension though may be especially interesting for networking. The following example shall show why:

For solving a small problem like discussing a mistake in a sales report a quick video meeting with a predetermined group of colleagues is very efficient. However, if the problem is more complex like coming up with a new idea for a product the group of involved people must not be predefined and working out the idea will take several days or months. A software engineer for instance might have a fantastic idea about a new software platform in mind but will not be able to tell right away how to realize it and how to design a business model for it. Big projects mostly rely on networks between people that are located in different places. Virtual worlds give the user the chance to experience networking like in real life: A worker in England can just approach his colleague in China and ask him a question as if he would be in the room next door.

Thus, we should extend the notion of virtual collaboration from the idea of a meeting to the entire process of collaboration. In this context the 3D-space could open up a new perspective for global networking.


Coming soon: Part 2: Web 2.0 in Virtual Worlds