Forrester released a new report today on "The Revival Of Consumer Virtual Worlds" by Paul Jackson with Michelle de Lussanet and Laura Wiramihardja. The premise is that if virtual worlds went "mainstream" (Forrester's quotes) with the hype from Second Life and the success of World of Warcraft two years ago, there's been more than a few slips along the way. Now Forrester believes the second phase is coming and "recommends that consumer product strategy professionals watch the space carefully — if they are not involved already — as we expect the next 12 months to be momentous for consumer virtual worlds."
The explanation makes sense to me: as established worlds (and Forrester blends MMOGs with worlds like Second Life and Habbo Hotel) are progressing strongly, more and more are launching soon with a veritable torrent of projects targeted for next year with new advances promoting greater adoption at each step.
The biggest trends include youth worlds (which I think haven't really even seen a dip since I've been covering the space) and business applications along with browser-based worlds, which are more often more easily accessible, looking even better.
I think the biggest point, and one that hadn't really struck me this explicitly, is that not only are new worlds benefiting from advances in technology (broadband penetration, improved graphics, mobile apps, etc.), but old worlds have gotten, or have the opportunity for, a serious facel ift.
"At the same time, more useful functions like voice chat, embedded video, better authoring tools, and improved visuals are helping make many of today’s virtual worlds virtually unrecognizable from their
incarnations two to three years ago," explain the authors.
Case in point, one of the earliest entries on Virtual Worlds News, in February 2007, was the report "Linden To Launch '3D Voice' in Second Life." A week ago I blogged that 8 billion minutes of voice had been used in Second Life.
That's not quite mainstream yet, but it's certainly big.
Gartner, likewise, has put public virtual worlds in the trough of dissilusionment right now, with 2-5 years to go before mainstream adoption. According to Forrester, the big takeaway is that Virtual Worlds Mark 2 will hit us sometime in 2009 or 2010, driving us past Web 2.0 into a new realm of interfaces and applications.
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