"IBM has decided to use the capabilities already developed by Linden Labs for its Second Life gaming environment to build a separate, experimental area within it. Participants – from IBM research and development departments around the world – can contribute whatever they feel is important to create a productive environment in which to conduct and manage 'business'.
"As with Second Life, participants create an online 'avatar' to represent them... (W)hen a meeting is called, the participants' avatars appear in a Second Life, 25MByte, online container that appears on each of their PCs.
"Communications can be by key-entry text or VoIP if that is appropriate. With text, all the contributions can be easily and fully minuted, and the probability is that speech-to-text systems will allow the same for speech-based interactions in the near future...
"The team itself is contributing gadgets to Second Life, including a language translator system. This has been provided free to Second Life mentors and is available for sale on the system. It has also developed a portal to an external business system – in this case Amazon – which can then be used by all participants." /The Register/
Thanks to Michel Leblanc for these cool screenshots of the IBM virtual facility.
For a excellent summary of how other businesses and groups are exploring SecondLife, check out this article from Popular Science.
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