Through my association with Jared Freedman and Code4software.com I found out about two new developments in Virtual Worlds Analytics that have been flying under the radar but could have far reaching impact, down the line, to many other fields.   Some of my readers may remember that the metrics developed for IBM‘s Second Life Business Center, the metrics strategy which I helped craft, was the most advanced in the world in 2007 - it probably still is (merging site analytics, questionnaire data, Virtual Analytics and in house databases in one report).

First, Linden Labs released HTTP-In and LSL Communications on July 7th, which allows “…allows LSL scripts to respond to http requests made by other servers – or even other LSL scripts”.    As Jared Freedman explained it to me, yesterday, it is now possible to pass query string parameters directly to objects within as Second Life Sim and have them respond, individually.  Here’s an example:

http://sim3536.agni.lindenlab.com:12046/cap/c975e835-1c6d-c8b7-39be-1dc63a088e5d/?foo=bar&some=thing

As each object (say a jar or kiosk in a Virtual Sim) has a unique address – the object can be updated from a web browser.        The capabilities haven’t been released to the entire Virtual World community in Second Life, yet, but soon will be, and it appears to be working very well.

Why would that be important?

Because Second Life has a visualization and interactive capabilities that are superior to most of what’s on the 2D web, the problem is that up to now, Virtual Worlds didn’t tend to scale well.   Think Omniture writing a Web Analytics Visualization to a Sim in Second Life, or a Social CRM application that wrote changes to a “Virtual Room” which the most important changes being closer to you – concepts and information that are difficult to verbalize but can be represented pictorially and in 3D Space.   The applications for Medicine and Education are abundant, but also exist for Marketing and Social Media.

Up till HTTP-In and LSL Communications it was much harder to update Virtual World Sims with 2D web information – bandwidth wise – it required continuous polling – it wasn’t easy, in other words.  Recently, it was said that Social Media is succeeding because it’s easy to do – (at least, it’s easy to participate in Social Media), and the “ease” part is what makes this development particularly interesting, as it could have been accomplished before, but with much more effort.

But the problem remained – a lot of companies don’t want to share their data with Linden Labs – much the way many people now share their analytics data with Google (via  Google Analytics); corporations like IBM want Second Life Visualization capabilities, but they want it behind their firewalls.   Well, now, that is possible, and it’s different than the “open grid” that has been in place for the last year or so.

Code named “Nebraska” Second Life Lives Behind a Firewall was first announced a few months ago (last April, to be exact) by Linden Labs

“…. Today, we’re pleased to share that the stand-alone version of Second Life solution is currently in the alpha phase. We have nine alpha installations in the field at organizations such as IBM, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), New Media Consortium (NMC), Intel, and Northrop Grumman. And, we’re planning to go into a limited closed beta phase this summer with general availability later this year.

Yes, this is a server solution that is completely disconnected from the main Second Life environment with all of the rich functionality in the box.”

The two developments, HTTP-In and LSL Communications joined with Second Life Lives Behind a Firewall now make it possible to build easily up-datable and interactive visualization, virtual worlds, under control and with full ownership of a corporation.

Here’s some possible applications.

Individuals:

Your own virtual world that gets updated with information you collect via RSS, Friendfeed, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, continually.    Your friends can visit your space and interact (even when your not “there”).

Healthcare:

Hospitals can have their own virtual rooms for patients that are updated with their medical history – since it’s behind the firewall, no problem with privacy.   Teaching can also be done in the same way.

Marketing:

Corporations can make their own virtual rooms, behind their firewalls, and customers can interact, via Social Media, using a Web Browser, without actually having to enter the Virtual World Sim.     Concepts are hazy as yet as I’m wrapping my mind around the possibilities.

Analytics:

As mentioned earlier, the visualizations created by Omniture Discover 2 and Visual Sciences, along with Coremetrics and Google Analytics, are rudimentary compared to what virtual worlds are capable of .   Using an open API, Analytics packages could easily write data to a private visualization of site analytics running on a clients’ site – again, behind the firewall, so the data is protected.   Because of the nature of Analytics, having a two way dialog with the data might be possible and easier using a Virtual World interface than a static, 2D web interface currently used on all platforms.

Social Media

I recently published a post in Entrepreneur.com titled “Track Your Tweets” talking about how easy it is for businesses to track their twitter traffic and how they should – but the visualization part could be far more developed in conjunction with a Virtual World Sim – Social CRM and Social Data-mining can best be visualized in a 3D Virtual World – see Unbound Technology – Social Media mining interview with Brian Killen.

It’s also true that People with Passion fuel Social Media but they want more interaction than what Second Life had to offer, which as it was mentioned, was very “lonely” – but with Nebraska and Http In, updating these worlds is going to become much easier and more accessible from the 2D Web, in ways that we have yet to develop, but soon will.

” … Second Life, which would have benefited from a few more boundaries (virtually geographically speaking). Second Life offers so much space there simply aren’t enough people to occupy it, so it becomes very lonely very quickly. Really, there’s nothing more depressing than wandering around an enormous Second Life mall and being the only one there.

Public Relations

I think it’s fair to say you can create campaigns for customers like Coke, Pepsi, Dell, American Cancer Society, etc – that are in Virtual Worlds and get much more “engagement” out of it, from visitors.  TechCrunch wrote recently about the valuation of Linden Labs Second Life – Does Anybody Still Use Second Life? And If So, How Much Is It Worth Today? where it was said…

” …. In average time spent per user per week, Second Life in fact trounces all other MMORPGs, including World of Warcraft and Civilization IV. In another testament to the service’s apparent stickiness, the number of hours users spend on Second Life has been increasing steadily and is currently at historic highs, totaling approximately 124 million hours in the first quarter of this year.

More importantly, Next Up says in-world transactions have recovered after a significant drop in September 2007 – when gambling was banned in the virtual world – and has been steadily increasing ever since December 2007.”

Suppose, with the new capabilities of HTTP-In and LSL Communications paired with “Nebraska” or  Second Life Lives Behind a Firewall these campaigns become much easier to do, much easier to update, and with metrics capabilities pioneered by Code4Software and advertising capabilities (with full metrics) available in the  Code4′s AdSoft package, you could fully update and track total visitation and engagement in these Virtual Sims that ran behind a firewall.

Mobile Marketing and Social Networking

Right now, my friends at Communities Dominate Brands believe Mobile is the 7th Mass Media, they’re probably right, as we all do more on our mobile phones now, pretty much, than on our laptops, and the trend will only continue.   What’s not considered is how well all of this “interaction” is visualized in an actionable way.  Right now, it’s possible to interface Virtual Worlds to Mobile Phones -and even, possibly, run clients for some of them, from say, an iPhone.    But what about updating the Virtual World from an iPhone – a private world – a private social network, a private room?

Sure, it could be done – but it was too hard ….. not any longer.

The next steps are to start seeing the practical applications of these new developments – my goal with this post was to raise awareness of them in the analytics and social media communities.

I just read Michael Arrington’s heartfelt post at TechCrunch this morning titled “Some Things need to Change” and I’m sad that some people are getting to the point where they’ll spit in  Michael Arrington’s face if he doesn’t write about them, or threaten his life, as he mentioned in the post.

Arrington does play rough with role at TechCrunch.com, he is often very opinionated, but he provides really good content and he loved what he was doing.

Lately, his job doesn’t sound like much fun, to be totally honest, and he’s right to take a pause.  It makes me wonder if it’s better not to be famous -then to be famous enough, make enough enemies, to have people hovering around you, constantly ready to strike out, and at unpredictable moments.

But let’s bring in the Economy, lousy finances all around; this will push people off the edge; people are often on the edge, you know. Times are tough, really tough, and about to get even tougher.

Now is not the time to make enemies if you can avoid it – people are on edge – and it doesn’t take that much to tick them off – and I think that’s what Micheal Arrington found – when he was in Munich.

I’m sure he’ll have a great time in Davos – but Davos is  a walled garden – a bunch of elites and influentials – getting together to talk how private industry failed and the Governments must now rescue us all – while they have parties upon parties to go to – I’d sooner read Jeff Jarvis‘s writings about Davos than anything else – he tells it like it is in

Davos09: A crisis and failure of leadership

, and hopefully, I’ll get a chance to say hello to Jeff Jarvis at SocComm next month (going to the VIP dinner the night before would be nice, too – we’ll see).[qwidget question="65"]

Getting back to Michael Arrington’s unfortunate experience in Munich yesterday – t o some people, the stakes got so high to be noticed, that TechCrunch became a decider, but maybe, too important.  But, on the other hand, isn’t that what TechCrunch strove to be?  An influencer.

A lesson.

Better to not be so famous or infamous that people want to spit in  your face, or throw shoes at you!

Here’s the first group of predictions that I think may happen in 2009.  To the extent I can, I will site information that lead me to make the predictions.

1. The price of a Barrel of Oil will settle at $60.00 for most of 2009.

Posted last week on Downturns are Predictable – at least this one is (was) even as OPEC Looks to Halt Falling Oil Prices but cutting back on production by up to 2 million barrels a day.What I think we’ll see is Oil staying stable at 60 dollars per barrel.

2. 2009 is going to be a Bad Year for Starbucks and NetFlix

People who are downsized, and that’s more and more of us, see Starbucks and Netflix as luxuries – visits to Starbucks will be down by about 20% in 2009 – leading to more cutbacks in employees, benefits and stores.  Other chains that are more Fast Food may not be as affected, with reductions of ~6% ( See Silicon Alley post Laid-Off, But Not Laying Down: Part One)>

3. George W. Bush will be acknowledged as the worst president in this nations history

I don’t think this is a hard prediction to make -

W. has started with everything going for him -  came into power with a record Surplus and nothing much happening and managed to turn great circumstances into 9/11, Iraq, and a ton of scandals. meanwhile, Barack Obama, as the first Black man to inhabit the White House – inherited all this extra work to do – just to clean up the MESS he’s left with from the outgoing administration.

4. Deepening distrust of Wall Street and it’s reason for existing and functioning. (note: many of the financial changes will start in 2009,but not necessarily take place till a year or two later).

There’s already been a lot written over the last few weeks about The Madoff Economy along with the incredible greed and incompetence of Wall Street experts – as 2009 continues – more transparency into Wall Street will be demanded – however, this will be very difficult to enact.

In fact, it’s going to be unclear how anyone, who doesn’t already have a lot of money to invest, will generate any kind of reasonable profit through Wall Street and the American Dream, for the time being – at least, parts of it, are going into hibernation.  There will be no way to make a big profit for most people; we’ll more be looking just to make an average living -and  we’ll have to live with Life Without Bubbles for a while.

Besides, just take a look at the Bush Era Investment Strategy from Talking Points Memo:

…. the above chart of the last eight years shows that we have been living in a financial version of Bizarro World where up is down and smart is stupid.

Meanwhile - Bush’s Tax Break May Have Helped Cause Housing Bubble

5. in 2009 we’ll have a second wave of financial institutions fail as more loans reset. The entire financial system will be on life support and uncertainty will grow on how we’ll emerge from it -

Wrote Downturns are Predictable – at least this one is (was) and I posted this video from 60 Minutes about a second wave of Bank Defaults coming; last year and into 2008, Sub Prime Mortgages were resetting – and I’m told this is what set off the financial problem we’re having.  In fact, this is part of the reason, I bet, that Banks are holding most of the $700 Billion dollar bailout instead of loaning it out, as Banks usually do.

Due to the deteriorating Economy next year – Obama’s first, second and third stimulus packages will end up extending unemployment insurance and food stamps indefinitely, at least, for the next 2 to 3 years and the benefits for food stamps and unemployment will go up, somewhat.

Right now Universal Health Care hasn’t been formally proposed, as such, but UHC will be proposed as one additional way to stimulate the economy and make it easier to hire and maintain the workforce.

In addition, a number of proposals will be seriously examined where Americans reduce or eliminate their debt through public service programs and community activism; many of these will also provide stipends.

As a result, the Government will be

- paying mortgages for those who can’t.

- stop mortgage loans (see above) from resetting.

- propose the creation of a new currency to replace the ailing dollar.

-housing homeless familiesaround the country, starting in 2009

That’s about it – I know there will be more – and I’ll write about it and publish the information if and when I have more to share.

I’ll have my Web Analytics predictions published here, in a couple of days.