An Introduction to Virtual World

1
An Introduction to Virtual World

• Second Life and Beyond

2
Outline

• What is Virtual World
• Second Life
• How Second Life Works
• Business in Second Life
• Research in Second Life
• Problem with Second Life
• Other Virtual Worlds
• OpenSimulator
• Wonderland
• Summary

3
What is Virtual World

• A virtual world is a computer-based simulated
  environment intended for its users to inhabit and
  interact via avatars. - Wikipedia

4
What is Virtual World

• Virtual world evolves from
• Social Networks
• Online Games
• World of Warcraft a very popular massively
  multiplayer online role-playing game (MMOG) that
  takes place in a fantasy virtual world.
• Simulations

5
What is Virtual World

• Besides World of Warcraft, there are also more
  realistic virtual worlds, which do not focus on
  gaming.
• These virtual worlds can be used for
• Communication
• Business
• Education
• Social Networking

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Second Life

• Second Life is the most popular non-gaming
  virtual world right now.
• Statistics (source)
• User-to-User transactions in 2009 totaled US567
  million in 2009, growth of 65 over 2008.
• The total amount of virtual currency in
  circulation reached L6.95 billion, growth of 23
  over December 2008. (1 270L)
• Residents spent 481 million hours in Second Life
  in 2009, 21 growth over 2008 
• Monthly Repeat Logins reached an all-time high of
  769,000 in December 2009, 15 growth over
  December 2008

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How Second Life Works

• Users download the Second Life client to enter
  the virtual world.

8
How Second Life Works

• Client/Server Architecture
• Server Like web server, stores all the
  information (avatar, object, finance, land) about
  Second Life and deals with all the requests. All
  servers are hosted at Linden Lab
• Client An open-source 3D virtual world viewer
  that renders the graphics to users.

Server_at_Linden Lab
Internet
Clients
9
How Second Life Works

• All the objects and activities in Second Life are
  created by its residents.
• Residents have different tools within Second
  Life
• Communication tools
• Text Communication
• Chat (Public)
• Instant Messaging (Private)
• Voice Chat
• Using Gestures and Animations

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How Second Life Works

• Transportation tools
• Walk/Fly in a region
• Teleport to other regions
• Build tools
• 3D Primitives Building
• Linden Scripting Language
• Texture, Sound and Animation Import

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Business in Second Life

• Second Life currency Linden Dollar (L)
• 1 US 260 L
• L can be used both on Web or in the virtual
  world.

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Business in Second Life

• Business Opportunities
• Selling virtual goods (C2C, B2C, B2B)
• Building communities
• Customer support
• Training research
• Public relation
• Marketing

13
Business in Second Life

• Despite the economic crisis around world,
  business in Second Life ,including user-to-user
  transaction (lower-left figure), and virtual
  store sales (lower-right figure), has been
  growing steadily.

14
Business in Second Life

• Real companies in Second Life

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Research in Second Life

• The burgeoning of Second Life has attracted
  researchers from various fields. Interesting
  research questions are raised in disciplines
  across business, education and social sciences.
  (Messinger, Stroulia, et al. 2009)
• Business domain
• Strategy How can virtual worlds like Second Life
  support themselves? By single up-front fee,
  periodic subscription fee, advertising or virtual
  product sales?
• Marketing How should an avatar agents
  appearance be designed?
• Organizational Issues Can virtual workspace
  improve group productivity?

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Research in Second Life

• Education domain
• How can virtual worlds be used for education and
  distance learning?
• What topics are particularly suitable for classes
  in virtual worlds?
• Will most Internet learning evolve to use virtual
  reality technologies?
• Social sciences domain
• Sociology Do behaviors and attitudes learned in
  virtual worlds affect behaviors and attitudes in
  the real world? How? In particular, do virtual
  worlds influence attitudes toward violence,
  sexuality, and conservatism?
• Psychology What are peoples motivation within
  virtual worlds?

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Research in Second Life

• Though most research on virtual worlds are still
  at infancy, we see several existing research that
  have addressed some of the questions.
• Education
• Franceschi, Lee, et al. (2009) conducted
  experiments in three learning environments
• Traditional classrooms
• Text-based e-learning
• 3D virtual world.
• The experiment results show that virtual
  classroom in Second Life is a better learning
  environment than text-based e-learning.
• Lester and King (2009) did experiments to compare
  the average grades between two classes of
  students, with one class taught face-to-face and
  the other in Second Life. The findings show that
  face-to-face learning results in a slightly
  higher average grades 84/100 compared to 80/100.

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Research in Second Life

• Sociology Psychology
• Yee (2006A, 2006B) studied the motivation of
  people playing massive multi-player online
  role-playing games (MMORPGs) and virtual worlds.
  Based on his study, user motivation consists of
  five factors achievement, relationship,
  immersion, escapism, and manipulation.
• Yee and Bailenson (2007) used experiments to show
  the Proteus effect, which states that
  individuals behavior conforms to their digital
  self-representation independent of how others
  perceive them.
• Yee, Bailenson, et al. (2007) and Friedman,
  Steed, et al. (2007) studied the nonverbal
  communication (NVC) in social interaction among
  Second Life residents. Both research shed light
  on how social norms evolve from real world to
  virtual world.

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Problems with Second Life

• During the past two years, Second Life did not
  gain its popularity as expected (compared to
  Facebook and Twitter). Some companies even began
  to close their virtual companies in Second Life.
  We can see there are several problems with Second
  Life, and all other virtual worlds
• High system requirements few personal computers
  can run Second Life client smoothly.
• High learning curve May be difficult for people
  new to 3D environments. And the object creation
  techniques is extremely difficult to manage.
• Little integration with Web Though there are
  websites selling virtual products, we see little
  application that utilize the power of both Second
  Life and Web 2.0.

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Other Virtual Worlds

• There are several open source projects that
  provide people the chance to host their own
  virtual world. Among them, two projects have
  gain some success
• OpenSimulator (OpenSim) (http//opensimulator.org/
  ) a C based 3D application server that
  emulates the protocols of Second Life. With
  OpenSimulator users can build a small scale
  Second Life-like virtual world.
• Wonderland (http//www.projectwonderland.com/) a
  Java based virtual world server that is
  undergoing fastest development. It supports more
  operation between virtual world client and other
  programs running on users computer. Users can
  drag anything from their computer to create
  virtual objects in Wonderland.

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Other Virtual Worlds

• Why having other virtual worlds?
• Scalability While Second Life is a world-wide
  virtual world, sometimes people may only need a
  small-scale virtual world, whose settings can be
  freely adjusted per users request.
• Accessibility These virtual worlds also allow
  data to be stored on local servers. Hence there
  is no access problem for a virtual world deployed
  in a local network, as many companies enforce
  strict network access policies.
• Confidentiality As 3D application server and
  databases are hosted entirely on local machines,
  instead of on Linden Labs servers, there is no
  risk of leaking confidential data when using
  these small virtual worlds.
• Cost-effective The cost of setting up these open
  source virtual worlds are far less than buying
  lands from Second Life. So these virtual worlds
  are more favorable for education and research
  purposes.

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Other Virtual World

• Who is using OpenSim and Wonderland?
• IBM released Lotus Sametime 3D last year, which
  is a collaboration product based on OpenSim. It
  targets at large organizations needing
  integration with other Lotus products and
  corporate LDAP directories. Current customers of
  Lotus Sametime 3D includes Northeastern
  University, Northcentral Technical College, and
  Raytheon.
• ReactionGrid provides OpenSim hosting and
  maintenance services. It also created tools to
  facilitate region building for users. Current
  customers of ReactionGrid includes Intel,
  Microsoft and the American Cancer Society.
• The MediaGrid Immersive Education Initiative led
  by Boston University is doing cutting-edge
  experiments in Wonderland for learning purposes.

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Other Virtual World
Screenshot of OpenSimulator
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Other Virtual World
Screenshot of Wonderland
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Summary

• As of today, Second Life is the most popular and
  most commercialized virtual world. It is most
  representative of the status quo of virtual
  worlds.
• OpenSim has been widely adopted by companies to
  develop virtual world-based communication and
  collaboration tools.
• Wonderland is more widely adopted for education
  purposes.
• It is expected that in near future, Second Life,
  OpenSim and Wonderland regions will be
  interconnected, allowing avatars to teleport
  freely among regions hosted under different
  technologies.
• This breakthrough will transform virtual worlds
  into a Web, where every company or organization
  can host their own virtual world regions.
• Virtual world client can serve as a web browser
  to direct users surfing within the Web of
  virtual worlds.

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Reference

• Franceschi, K., R. M. Lee, et al. (2009).
  "Engaging Group E-Learning in Virtual Worlds."
  Journal of Management Information Systems 26(1)
  73-100.
• Friedman, D., A. Steed, et al. (2007). Spatial
  social behavior in second life Intelligent
  virtual agents 2007 Springer-Verlag
• Lester, P. M. and C. M. King (2009). "Analog vs.
  Digital Instruction and Learning Teaching Within
  First and Second Life Environments." Journal of
  Computer-Mediated Communication 14 457-483.
• Messinger, P. R., E. Stroulia, et al. (2009).
  "Virtual world - past, present, and future New
  directions in social computing." Decision Support
  Systems 47 204-228.
• Yee, N. (2006A). "The Demographics, Motivations,
  and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively
  Multi-User Online Graphical Environments."
  PRESENCE Teleoperators and Virtual Environments
  15 309-329.
• Yee, N. (2006B). "Motivations for Play in Online
  Games." CyberPsychology Behavior 9(6).
• Yee, N. and Bailenson, J. N. (2007). "The Proteus
  Effect The Effect of Transformed
  Self-Representaion on Behavior." Human
  Communication Research 33 271-290.
• Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., et al. (2007). "The
  Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital The
  Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online
  Virtual Environments." The Journal of
  CyberPsychology and Behavior 10 115-121.