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JJ Ramberg

JJ Ramberg is the anchor of “Your Business,” MSNBC’s weekly show on small business. In addition to her extensive television reporting experience, Ramberg has a background as an entrepreneur and co-founded GoodSearch.com. She has an MBA from Stanford Business School.



Launching ideas on the cheap (virtually)

Posted: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 11:24 AM by Eve Tahmincioglu
Filed Under: , , , , ,

I recently interviewed a small business owner in a lavish conference room where he showed me his new idea for large screen video ads, but I kept walking into walls and the conference room's table.

No, I wasn't drunk folks. I was doing a bad job navigating my avatar.

An avatar is a computer simulation of you. I created one in the virtual world known as Second Life. I made the mistake of having my eight-year-old daughter help me design the avatar, which looks like a six-foot Lara Croft bunny rabbit.

My avatar met up with entrepreneur John Westra's avatar in Second Life so he could show me a video system he has created using large flat panel screens that he wants to sell to big retailers and airports to advertise products.

Westra didn't have to spend a dime on the hardware to build a prototype for his idea. Why? Because he created a simulation of the video system in Second Life.

I know, most of you probably thought virtual worlds were only for technology nerds who want to play weird games online and avoid interaction with humans.

But you'd better get your head out of the sand. More and more entrepreneurs are turning to virtual worlds for a low-cost way to design, test and even launch new business ideas.

I wrote the cover story this month for BusinessWeek's Small Biz magazine. It's titled "First Stop: Second Life. How to use virtual worlds to test your business ideas," and the article delves into this growing phenomenon.

During my research it really blew my mind to see how entrepreneurs were using virtual worlds to test their ideas and products, and it makes total sense -- why spend money on equipment, raw materials and focus groups if you can do everything virtually?

One business owner designed a toy in Second Life and met up with an engineer from a Hong Kong factory in Second Life to show him the design and have him create a real model.

Another small business owner who runs an architectural firm created simulated homes in the virtual world and has his customers create avatars so they can virtually walk through the homes before a single brick is laid.

It's all about thinking inside the box -- your computer.

You don't even need a real office anymore to meet clients.

When I met Westra in Second Life we were able to communicate via instant messaging, so our conversation was essentially held in real time.

Even though I had trouble navigating my avatar I was able to eventually walk over to the simulation of his new product and go through a presentation (I have difficulty making my avatar sit down, so we stood throughout the meeting).

Strangely, after the meeting was over I felt like I had actually met Westra.

The potential for virtual worlds is just beginning to be tapped. I suggest all of you get over to Second Life, or any of a host of cyberworlds available to the public.

I'm not saying every business can benefit from testing products in cyberspace, but maybe there's some potential for exploiting these worlds for the greater good of your company, or future company.

What do you have to lose?

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Comments

My company is using the virtual world platform to promote a new comic book series.  It's definitely the way of the future and companies can no long settle for just having a web site.  The web site needs to be interative and it needs to engage visitors and take them on a journey.

Jenny McCoy, (Sent Tuesday, September 23, 2008 5:29 PM)

SL is great place for rapid prototyping and market testing--but learning how to make stuff inworld at high quality and attracting sample groups is difficult! We are using SL to test entertainment brands and media content. For example creating graphic novels and machinimas that can be used outside of SL on the web to reach larger audiences.

Rightasrain Rimbaud (Sent Thursday, September 25, 2008 4:50 AM)

Great post.

My company Altadyn develops a web3D platform called 3DXplorer for allowing companies to quickly create 3D spaces like this.

A key aspect of 3DXplorer is that it is plug-in-less and browser-based.  For non-technology buffs, that means you just click a link while surfing the Internet and you can visit a 3D space or world right in your usual web browser without downloading or installing any additional software.

SL is cool, but it requires you to install a large application and join to become a "resident" of Second Life.  This isn't even possible in most business environments where companies prevent installation of non-standard software.  Imagine a 3D web where any site can be 3D and anyone can visit it by just clicking a link.

To give an idea of the potential, consider that SL has maybe a little over 1 million "active" residents.  As a result, anything done in Second life is pretty much limited to that small community, or the new members you can convince to join, which is hard, as pointed out in the comment above.  There are 1.5 billion people with access to the Internet.

Making 3D accessible to all these Internet users versus trying to convince them into joining a special community and installing a proprietary application is sort of like the difference in speaking to the entire world or speaking to a Star Trek convention.

The comment above about the difficulty in learning how to make high-quality stuff inworld is right on.  Ideally, one could just import any data that had already been creaed by people using common modeling applications like CAD for architecture, residential home builders, imaginary 3D worlds, products like the toy mentioned in the original post, etc.  Google's 3D Warehouse alone has many thousands of free models that can be used.

Here are a couple of links to 3D spaces created using this free existing 3D data:

Green Home by Michelle Kaufmann:
http://www.3dxplorer.com/download_file/mkLotus5.html

Benaroya Hall in Seatle:
http://www.3dxplorer.com/download_file/worlds/index_benaroyagrandlobby5.html

3D on the web is available to anyone today.  Check it out at www.3dxplorer.com.

Greg Milliken, Richardson, TX (Sent Thursday, September 25, 2008 1:44 PM)

I'd like to clarify something in Greg's post.  Second Life is free to everyone.  Yes, you need to "join" to get a login, just like any other web site, but it does not cost anything.

And Second Life is not a small community.  It's residents come from every country in the world. And include people from all walks of life, all social cultures, all genders, all races, all - everything!

Elsbeth Writer (Sent Friday, September 26, 2008 8:27 AM)

This is probably the most retarded thing I have ever heard

Jeremy, Chicago, IL (Sent Friday, September 26, 2008 9:59 AM)

It seems to me that you would protect yourself by getting a copyrght or patent of your ideal or product before you go and give it out on a web site.

Greg Shelton, Bartlett, TN (Sent Friday, September 26, 2008 12:40 PM)

I agree with Greg in Tennessee.  In this day and age of ethical conduct, there is no way I would expose any idea for a product or service that I might have to a virtual world where anyone can basically hijack it.  If people were trustworthy, it might be a different case but the age of handshakes is behind us.

Luke (Sent Saturday, September 27, 2008 11:49 AM)

The problem is that SL, and other vitual reality worlds are viewed by the majority of society as a "game" based platform, thus making it unacceptable for traditional business purposes. I do know, and understand that there are people out there making a living with e-commerce on virtual reality sites such as SL, selling everything from virtual real estate to makeovers for your avatar. More power to them.

This will never be a viable mainstream source of income for the majority of our population, nor any other population for that matter. It is what you would call a niche market, and it certainly will sustain several specialty or boutique ventures, but nothing more than that.

Serious 3-D modeling applications for major manufacturing will continue to happen outside of the "game" world of virtual reality, as it it just not mainstream acceptable in the business culture at this moment in time.

Now please excuse me, I have to go back and finish battling a rogue band of pirates who wish to relinquish me of the command of my ship!

Greg, Madison, WI (Sent Tuesday, September 30, 2008 11:38 AM)



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