Virtual Businesses going to the Office in Second Life
As travel budgets are squeezed and slashed in the recession, companies are increasingly seeking innovative ways of bringing employees together for conferences and meetings remotely.
Virtual community Second Life is seeking to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks.
The company’s Enterprise tool will let employees’ avatars — animated alter egos — meet in virtual worlds from the privacy of a company’s own network, rather than the public networks used in standard Second Life. That extra security could encourage more companies to take up the technology.
The ability to collaborate effectively using virtual tools may now become an increasingly important skill as technology offers more options than, say, video conferencing.
According to Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, more than 1,400 organizations — including large companies, educational institutions, government agencies and even the U.S. military — use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently.
eOffice runs it’s own Business Package for businesses looking to get into Second Life, saving the time and cost otherwise neccessary for entry level startups – for just £99 a month and a £499 setup fee you could see your business showcased in Second Life alongside others. For more details on the benefits of this package and to discover eOffice’s own Virtual Reality Conferencing and Meeting facilities visit myeOffice.net and browse through the Tour and Business sections.
Avantoure Wild Edition
Avantoure.com have just published their latest action packed edition of their acclaimed digital interactive magazine. Check out the special eOffice feature on page 100 covering our latest reality enhancing technology for distance conferencing.
You can find out more about our exciting new system as it evolves in it’s Beta stage at myeOffice.net
View the latest issue here
myeOffice Press Release
I’m delighted to share with you the launch of the first ever real world conferencing service enhanced and complimented by a virtual world arm. The system allows businesses to reach new audiences from both real and virtual world sources, providing a solution to global SME collaboration and interoperability. eOffice will be the first company worldwide to offer facilities of this nature to their clients, a move in touch with their forward thinking mentality.
The system consolidates real and virtual world resources in a way which not only enhances the reality of both, but creates a more engaging experience for participants. They can share video, stream webcam, audio, VOIP, images, URLs and collaborate on Documents, synchronised in real-time within an attractive virtual environment. It makes the powerful multimedia and communications potential of virtual worlds far more accessible to the masses, over a combination of platforms.
About Second Life
Second Life is the leading platform for 3D Virtual Reality worlds and a key player in the blossoming of the next era of the internet, with some 15 million residents. Read more →