years or so. But I think it's more about the Web, if you talk with meaning in computing over these last couple of decades. So, the evidence is there for the immersionist theory.
And the other evidence that is there, if I can be so self-serving, is Second Life. You don't have any successful experiences -- I know that we are still a small and fairly early adopter environment in the grand scheme of things -- but you don't have anything that is of similar size that has come out of the technology industry that is a comparable augmentation experience. You've done all of these great things coming out of all of these research houses, saying "oh, in the future you are going to walk in your house and your refridgerator is going to grab food and start making dinner and know that you're there," and all of this stuff. You see a lot of great showcases of that, but there's no production environment, nobody's got any users, nobody's got any money.
We have a lot of criticism, which I am glad to have, as somebody who is early in the industry. You want to have the arrows in your back, because that's where people are aiming from. But we have actually demonstrated that this is something that is possible to build, something that has got some enthusiasm among this user base, and we're going to continue to grow it. So the only answer that I can have is just to try to continue to grow it, continue to evolve it, and like I said, that argument is not going to stop in the next ten years. That's not going to get settled.
And at the end of the day, you're going to have significant elements of both. I do believe quite a lot of the Minority Report vision too. But I just think the evidence is not actually there yet, for the immersionists. So I don't understand why there is so much confidence when someone picks the augmentation side over the immersion side.
Industry Standard: Who is your biggest competitor?
Yoon: Our biggest competitor is you know, I am going to give you a highly unsatisfactory answer to that. We don't really focus on competitors. Our biggest competitor, our biggest obstacle is often ourselves. When you are trying to introduce certain new technologies and experiences, you don't have enough guideposts along the way, and you sort of stumble down some false alleyways every once in a while. Sometimes it's a rough ride.
A lot of times it's easier to chase behind somebody who is doing that stumbling for you. But the guy in front, if they stay in front, they don't spend all of the tie time looking over their shoulder. So I honestly can't say that we really look at one competitor as the biggest or most important one. Obviously, we do keep track of developments in the industry, developments online in general. But you have a better answer to that than I do. Right? It's probably going to be highly dependent on segments and use cases as well.
Industry Standard: Where does Google fit into this whole ecosystem?
Yoon: Google is obviously one of these great computing companies, the great Internet companies of our time. Anywhere that they have ambition and even where they don't have ambition, they are going to experiment, and you have to respect and watch what they're doing. Certainly, we've watched the results of the Lively and again, highly unsatisfactory answer, but it's great to see validation in the space.
I can't help it. But you know what? It's true. But what is also true is there are a lot of people who said "I can't wait till someone who knows what they are doing comes in here. Google is going to do this, Microsoft is
Comments
Such a long article and no mention of gray textures or objects that appear only after you've flown past them. Six years or more of Second Life and still the claim that used to be on the secondlife.com site "the world appears before you turn to it", has not been fulfilled.
When internet speeds increase to a certain point, won't that eliminate the advantage offered by the use of Second Life prims, enabling the use of meshes instead? Meshes which can be made in programs outside of the Second Life viewer, thus eliminating the need for Second Life builders, i.e., prim builders?
@Chuck - Speeds won't eliminate the advantage because a) less streaming content is always better ... especially in areas where providers start throttling service, and b) prims could be much more complex than what is currently offered. Prims are more like CAD data (e.g. Pro/E); meshes are what you get from a non-CAD 3D modeler (e.g. 3DSMax). As someone who uses both professionally, I'd personally be pleased if they improved the prim tools (e.g. allow builders to draw profiles for extrusions). However, as someone who knows that the platform could benefit from greater support from the broader 3D community, I'm supportive of an importer.
That said, Linden Lab has already broached the subject of both upgrading the prim modeling tools and allowing the import of mesh files. The issue wasn't which to do, but which should take priority. I believe mesh import won.
Why would business people want to use Second Life as a collaborative tool, when there are so many easy to use conferencing and collaborative tools that are specifically designed for the task at hand?
The Second Life system itself is too unreliable for business meetings. Just ask any player (er.. resident) about server and database downtime or client (on your PC) crashes.
The avatar is an extra layer of complexity that business people don't need. The learning curve is steep, and not everyone masters 3D navigation quickly, if at all.
A meeting of avatars is like going to a business meeting where each person has to operate a puppet, and can only communicate with the others through that puppet's actions.
If this works, I'm going to open a puppet supply house targeted at the Fortune 500.
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