3-D the future of the Internet

This is from Xerox innovation chief Sophie Vandebroek – taken from a recent Q&A interview in Computerworld,

“In my mind, the 3-D virtual world is the future of the Internet. In the future, you don't need to be in the same room to look each other in the eye and understand the issues and collaborate on projects.”

So here are a few of my favorite 3-D virtual places that you should be watching. They will shape the future of the Internet,

SecondLife
Kaneva
There

Kaneva also offers a great description of how the 3-D Internet will come to be on their platform web site.

So how can you capitalize on having seen the future today? I would contend that these are the Top Opportunities in Virtual Worlds,

1. Access Pass/Cover Charge (aka Subscriptions)
2. Professional Collaboration
3. Entertainment & Event Planning
4. Instruction & Education
   
5. Building/Designing
6. Professional Services
7. Web & World Integration
8. Trade/Exchange Rate platforms

They include opportunities for creators, for users, and for new secondary markets. I don't know about you but I plan to be a part of the wave as the next big powerhouse in online marketing.

Access Pass/Cover Charge (aka subscriptions)

At the current time, this is the opportunity that most of the existing players have been mining the most. The basic model is simple: charge a cover for users to access your environment.

Professional Collaboration

Business Week recently reported that Rivers Run Red saved $175,000 last year by holding meetings in SecondLife. This is no small amount of money for a small business and, in this age of increasing security checklines at airports and gas prices over $4 a gallon, virtual worlds may be the best collaboration platform yet.

Entertainment & Event Planning

Increasingly music stars are moving into virtual reality. The BBC, MTV, and Fox have already held events. Organizing events, preparing the space, publicizing, booking and training speakers are all jobs that require some level of expertise and there are dollars associated with providing that expertise.

Instruction & Education

There are opportunities around teaching classes in building virtual assets. In Kaneva, you can find people teaching how to create and program the basics. One can envision people getting paid for this type of work in the not so distant future. Harvard has already created virtual training grounds to explore virtual reality.

Professional Services

Virtual worlds, or the Metaverse as it is also referred to, have created an eco-system where professional journalists, DJs, ad agencies, and other types of services (some of the more risque ones involving the sex trade) are interacting on a daily basis. Economies are being created that mirror traditional world equivalents in the virtual realm.

Building/Designing

Love fashion? Home decor? Creating new digital goods and selling them in the virtual space may be for you. Most goods from the real world can have a digital equivalent and companies like American Apparel have noticed the space, and sub-contracted the development of those goods to a third party. More exciting is the popularity of a new breed of digital fashion designers. Their work realized only in the virtual world as highly sought after pixels.

Web & World Integration

Virtual Worlds are generally closed spaces. Some, like SecondLife, have started opening up to the wider net. For example, users can now visit Amazon.com in SecondLife, thanks to the Amazon API and SecondLife’s ability to call on it from inside its virtual world. Those opportunities represent a new space and integration houses with expertise in both the virtual world and the wider web will be well positioned to take advantage of those opportunities.

Trade/Exchange Rate platforms

Another portion of the secondary market is surrounding the thin link between the trade that happens in those virtual worlds and real dollars. Companies or individuals who manage to create a platform that offers a way to trade from one of the virtual worlds into another might find themselves as the new middle-men in a space that is bound to grow economically and profit from making a small percentage on every inter-virtual world transaction.