Business Goes Virtual - Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

The fifth post of my Business Goes Virtual blog series continues with “Chapter 5 – Making Sense of Virtual Worlds”. Although it may seem like all Virtual worlds (VWs) are games, they’re not. World of Warcraft, Farmville, and other popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have taken the world by storm, but nongame VWs, like Second Life and Project X, are only starting to come out of its shell.

In Business Goes Virtual, we have provided four laws to be successful in VWs.

Law #1: Virtual Worlds Are Not Games

The first assumption that businesses often make is that VWs are games. This is a wrong assumption. The right answer is that VWs are a new, rich media communication channel. While the market for nongame VWs is still relatively emergent compared to MMOGs, VWs are a rapidly growing new market segment. Based on our research preparing for this book, businesses need to start planning an online presence in VWs in order to create interactive community experiences so that they can learn how to exploit new ways of communicating with customers, suppliers, and employees in rich, virtually immersive environments.

Virtual worlds are powerful as they have tremendous online reach and can easily bring together large groups of simultaneous players in a fast- paced online environment; they can provide an interesting capability for the future of organizations. MMORPGs represent a growing business that, according to the Tower Group, will reach 40 million people and generated over $9 billion in revenue by 2010.

Virtual worlds present the next frontier for customer and employee interactions. Organizations need to start preparing now for these new methods of communication, or they will lose talent and customer segments who desire this form of customer interaction experience.

Law #2: Experience Must Be Relevant to Solve a Business Need and Create Value

Law #3: Each Avatar Is a Real Person

Law #4: A Virtual World Experience Is a New Branding Opportunity

Are you a part of a VW? How do you think it will disrupt the market when it becomes more popular in the future?

Buy a physical or electronic copy of Business Goes Virtual: http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/business-goes-virtual-realizing-value-collaboration-social-and-virtual-strategies

The content includes:

PART I - THE CONVERGENCE

Chapter 1 - Virtual Business: Real or Imaginary?

Chapter 2 - The New Face(book) of Organizations

Chapter 3 - Real Leadership in the Virtual World

Chapter 4 - The Power of Sharing

Chapter 5 - Making Sense of Virtual Worlds

PART II THE STRATEGIES

Chapter 6 - Any Place, Any Time

Chapter 7 - The People Know Best

Chapter 8 - Everyone Has a Stake

Chapter 9 - Real in the Virtual World

PART III THE WAY AHEAD

Chapter 10 - What Every Leader Needs to Know