Rare Tour of Sun Microsystems' "Wonderland"

Surinder Kahai writes "Last week I had the rare opportunity to see an emerging virtual world called Wonderland, the product of an open source project, Project Wonderland, sponsored by Sun Microsystems. The tour was given by Nicole Yankelovich, Principal Investigator of the Collaborative Environments Project at Sun Microsystems. Some of the key aspects of this dynamic virtual world are voice communication with distance attenuation, the ability to join a Wonderland meeting through a regular phone if a computer is not handy, and the sharing of applications such as Open Office. Wonderland is currently being used by educational facilities and can be used by other organizations for virtual collaboration. Since the project is an Open Source project, users can tweak the tools available to suit their particular purpose."

Why?

[clang_jangle]

Aside from the obvious fact that the name is more "theme park" than business-like, what can it really do that can't be done (with fewer resources) via teleconferencing, and/or chat, and/or version control? Seems to me it's just teleconferencing with eye candy.

no way this is going to be used as intended

[JazzyMusicMan]

I work at a software firm and a good chunk of the QA staff and even some product strategy folk can't work LiveMeeting and you're trying to tell me that this is easier and more intuitive to the point of wide adoption?

Re:oh joy

[vertinox]

You know, people might have said this was a ridiculous waste of time a couple years ago cuz you might as well just do it all in real life.

Considering the increasing costs of driving and airline tickets, teleconferencing is going to get real popular real soon for many people.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people laughed at the concept of a commercial web not too long ago...

And now they cry.

Re:Why?

[benevixit]

The big reason for 3d virtual worlds in business is the same as for gaming: They have the potential to be a richer, more natural and engaging user experience. Imagine trying to sustain participants' attention in a 30-minute SMS business meeting.