Immersive tech for meetings/conferences must be scalable and easy to use
by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.
In our January “trends” blog post, we predicted that 2010 would be a year of churn in the emerging enterprise immersive software market. It’s only a few months into the year and already a rapid-fire series of events has occurred, setting many industry participants on edge:
- Forterra Systems was acquired by SAIC (see our February 8, 2010 post about it here).
- Oracle discontinued funding Sun Project Wonderland (now called Open Wonderland) (see our March 1, 2010 post about it here).
- Key roles on Linden Lab’s enterprise team were folded into the broader organization and several folks on the enterprise team have moved on, including former general manager Chris Collins.
- Virtual Worlds Management, the company that has held Virtual World Expo and 3DTLC conferences since 2007, renamed itself Engage Digital Media and has de-emphasized its focus on virtual worlds. The 3DTLC conference and 3DTLC.net blog have been suspended. 3DLTC.net editorial content has been folded back in to VirtualWorldsNews.com.
“Light immersive” (pseudo-3D) technology has advantages
From our perspective, this period of churn applies primarily to 3D immersive software, which we’ll refer to as “rich immersive.” Vendors that offer pseudo-3D technology (e.g., InXpo, ON24, Unisfair, and others), which we’ll refer to as “light immersive,” are largely unaffected—in fact, indications are that the leading vendors in the light immersive segment are in a growth spurt.* Why? Two reasons:
- Two of the most common use cases for immersive technology are meetings and conferences (see the May 26, 2009 ThinkBalm report, ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009).
- For meetings and conferences, ease of use matters a lot. And for all but collaborative meetings (which are by definition small), scalability matters a lot. As a category, rich immersive technology has not yet been able to deliver on these requirements to the same degree that light immersive technology has (see the September 23, 2009 ThinkBalm report, Crossing the Chasm, One Implementation at a Time).
In many cases, rich immersive technology offers a level of engagement that is hard to achieve with light immersive technology. Some use cases absolutely depend on 3D—like training simulations, some business activity rehearsal, collaborative prototyping, 3D data visualization, and remote facility operations. Collaborative meetings, which by definition comprise a relatively small number of people, also benefit from a strong sense of presence and collaboration, communication, and productivity tools built into 3D environments. But for presentation-style small meetings, and large meetings and conferences, the market is speaking loud and clear: ease of use and scalability are higher priorities than deep immersion.
Early majority in 2013: not for rich immersive software
Due to this string of events—and with more events sure to unfold as 2010 rolls on—we’re modifying our soft projection that work-related use of immersive technology will reach the early majority adoption phase in 2013. We made this projection several times, most recently in the January 19, 2010 ThinkBalm report, The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide. By early majority we mean that enterprise immersive software will have “a significant installed base within Global 1000 companies and large public sector organizations and at least a few successful very large-scale implementations.” We think our projection still holds for light immersive technology, but not for rich immersive (3D) technology. Early majority adoption of rich immersive technology will take longer than this. (Belgian Journalist Roland Legrand wrote about this trend in his recent blog article titled, “Early mainstream work-related adoption of immersive software: 2013 is a bit too early.”)
What it means for immersive software vendors targeting meetings and conferences
A few things are clear:
- Design decisions should favor ease of use. The user experience must be hassle-free and intuitive from the moment a participant RSVPs for a meeting or event to the time they fill out a post-event feedback form. Populating the user profile, navigating in the environment, moving from one meeting room to another, accessing and downloading meeting materials, communicating with speakers, and networking with others must all be straightforward experiences.
- A browser interface is a must. For the optimal user experience, technology providers must offer a web-based interface for meeting and conference attendees and participants. Ideally, no browser plug-in is required, either, because many workplaces shut down this option for their computer users.
- Scalability means thousands. Vendors targeting large meetings and conferences must offer the ability to bring not just tens or hundreds but thousands—or even tens of thousands—of people together in the same virtual place at the same time. By this we mean all participants should be able to be in the same keynote or general session together, watching and listening to the presentation and communicating with others around them.
* For example, ON24 held more than 300 virtual events in 2009. And InXpo, which held more than 500 virtual events in 2009, is seeking to fill nearly a dozen open positions.
© 2010 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.
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Hi Erica,
I’m not entirely convinced of your conclusions, at least without some very careful qualifications of who, what, where, etc. “light immersive” is being very polite. I’ve had quasi-immersive experiences while looking at high quality wedding photos taken with a medium format camera. the depth of the photos has an ability to draw you in. I’ve not spent too much time with products such as On24 an Inxpo, but i think of their visual experience as akin to taking good pictures of a diarama, then adding chat features. You know that confusion you get when you;ve been using your ipad or iphone, then pick up a Kindle or a Nook? they all have books on the screen so I find myself poking at the kindle screen, but nothing happens! I had the same experience in On24/InXpo. I saw people(some even following walking scripts). I found myself rapidly pressing my arrow keys to run over to them to chat. alas, it was like poking my blackberry. I was stuck in front of my computer at my desk. I got excited when I saw chat, and then the “avatar” button. hmmm, looks like AOL in ‘92, with a headshot from Facebook. I think that we are being too generous to call these platforms “light virtual reality”. I see them more as desktop applications layerd on dimensional backgrounds. Or, imagine a translucent GUI placed on the side of a store window, where the manequins are animatronic. I’f call this augmented reality, but that generally implies application interface being overlayed onto something real. In my mind, this category is really about a new “presentation layer” on top of webex/live meeting type features. I get the fact that these platforms can have masses of “concurrent users”, but so can a Verizon conference bridge line, so can a gaggle of other diarama based communication tools. we have known for quite some time that “virtual” is an abused term, that carries little value these days. “ant farm” type visuals are one end of the spectrum, 3D POV MMOG Immersive environments are certainly at the other. adding another dimension of course is the sophistication of what we can do in a “real” immersive environment built on industrial tools, not on top of pictures and scripted animation. I may be coming accross as a bit harsh, but some of us really have our hands full trying to erase the perceptions and encounters that customers have historically had with either very bad, or altogether Faux VR.
Thanks,
Brian
Brian: Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I know what you mean about “going back” once you’ve experienced a rich immersive environment. I’ve found that people who have experience using rich immersive environments (3D environments like virtual worlds or immersive learning environments) are acutely aware of the limits to immersion offered by the light immersive software (e.g., ON24, InXpo, Unisfair). In contrast, people who have no experience with 3D environments find the light immersive software to be incredibly immersive; they are comparing it to a conference call or web conference.
The trade-offs for the higher level of immersion possible with 3D environments are ease of use and scalability. For some use cases (e.g., some business activity rehearsal and training scenarios), 3D is an absolutely necessary element. For others (e.g., large meetings and conferences) it is less important than ease of use and scalability.
Neither rich immersive environments nor light immersive environments are inherently good or bad. The trick is to pick the right tool for the job.
Erica,
” In contrast, people who have no experience with 3D environments find the light immersive software to be incredibly immersive; they are comparing it to a conference call or web conference.”
this is irony, isn’t it? is the desired outcome to be compared to a conference call or webex? if so, what’s the point?
as for scalability and usability – real innovation understands the availabilty of tools, the destination environment, the target demographic(and the needs for usability), then produces something that provides a meaningful improvement to the status-quo. Or, we can blame technology for its shortcomings and all the things that “we would love to today, but can’t”
I can take a cardboard cutout of a Ferrari and tape it to the side of a Toyota. I can then talk about the fantastic innovation I have created: its accessible, user friendly, scalable, inexpensive and comparable to a Toyota…..
Brian: I think the bottom-line issue is that for organizations that have never used immersive software before, the barriers to adoption of rich immersive software (3D) are high. Barriers to adoption of light immersive software (pseudo-3D) are lower. For presentation-style small meetings, large meetings, and conferences, the market is speaking loud and clear: ease of use and scalability are higher priorities than deep immersion. For learning simulations, 3D data visualization, remote facility operations, and other more complex use cases, the requirement for 3D remains high.
Erica & Brian: I enjoyed reading Erica’s original post, as well as your follow-on discussion.
To address Brian’s points, I don’t think virtual events (e.g. light immersive platforms) ever claimed to achieve “virtual reality”, at least in terms of the ‘pure’ definition of VR – Brian’s characterization of virtual events as applications layered on top of dimensional backgrounds is quite accurate (today).
I do agree with Erica in terms of the market speaking loud and clear – virtual events are gaining adoption due to their ease of use and scalability. Rather than placing a cut-out of a Ferrari on top of a Toyota, we’re focused on a well-assembled engine and a car that’s easy to drive.
Over time, that Toyota may start to achieve the look, style and “immersiveness” of a Ferrari, but we must not sacrifice ease-of-use and scalability in getting there.
Dennis Shiao
InXpo Product Marketing | Blogger at “It’s All Virtual”
As a developer myself, and a user of many years, I can see both points.
The problem is, whilst having 1,000’s of users in the same virtual environment at the same time, all participating in the same realtime event, it is not really feasible with current hardware limitations. This is perhaps why ‘lite’ immersive platforms have taken off. I believe these are a technology stop gap, that will loose ground to fully immersive 3D environments, over time.
The systems I have been working on to date, begin to raise the stakes. We have created a stable browser based environment for almost 1,000 realtime users in the one instance of an environment and believe this can be taken to around 1,500 before latency begins to degrade the quality of the experience.
We are also involved with a major consortium, industrialising both client and server systems, that will allow the realtime users in a single environment to reach multi thousands on todays hardware. It will tick boxes such as, browser based, no additional plug-ins required, security built into the core, interoperability for content/avatars and user identity, content using standard mainstream formats, modular design to allow for user adaptation, rich API set. I cannot offer a time line for the release of the solution, but I can report that this is an international consortium backed by some serious industrial players.
We believe this will lower the barriers for adopters and give the user experience demanded without the high tech entry points. It will also meet the requirements for network administrators and deployment strategies. The tools will finally begin to fit the needs of the users, as opposed to training the users to accept technology limitations.