There’s an article over on BusinessWeek, “My Virtual Life” (Link), that does a fairly comprehensive job of covering the virtual world Second Life. Much of the information will be a rehash for SL residents – whether it’s a repeat of previously-reported news (e.g. Anshe Chung’s success) or the kind of information mostly gathered from reading the forums (e.g. Shaun Altman’s virtual stock exchange). There are, however, interesting tidbits. In particular, here’s a piece that I enjoyed reading:
All this has some companies mulling a wild idea: Why not use gaming’s psychology, incentive systems, and social appeal to get real jobs done better and faster? “People are willing to do tedious, complex tasks within games,” notes Nick Yee, a Stanford University graduate student in communications who has extensively studied online games. “What if we could tap into that brainpower?”
In other words, your next cubicle could well be inside a virtual world. That’s the mission of a secretive Palo Alto (Calif.) startup, Seriosity, backed by venture firm Alloy Ventures Inc. Seriosity is exploring whether routine real-world responsibilities might be assigned to a custom online game. Workers having fun, after all, likely will be more productive. “We want to use the power of these games to transform information work,” says Seriosity CEO Byron B. Reeves, a Stanford professor of communications.
The idea of working inside a virtual space like Second Life is something I point to all the time here, so no one should be surprised that I’m quoting that part. I just wish one of these reporters would link it to the PLM software corporations are adopting as a means to get their work done. Actually, I think I’ll make some time to dig into the current state of PLM so I can better gauge similarities and disconnects. It could be another year or two before MSM makes the connection.
What I hadn’t heard about was this new company, Seriousity. Guess I’ll learn a bit more about them. And there are some other developments I’ve known about, but not attempted to gather more information (like what Clickable Culture is discussing in a recent post – Link). I expect I’ll increasingly not be aware of the latest developments in SL; both because it’s growing so large and because I’m spending more time looking outside it.
BusinessWeek is also carrying a second article (Link) related to the first; a quick supplemental read.
via The Daily Graze