A Web 3.0 Story, November 12th 2011

1.08 PM, November 12^th 2011,

I was having a lazy day. I just finished a cup of coffee and decided to go online to find some new friends. I clicked the remote control and the full HD TV panel disclosed my online community to me instantly. It showed the location and coordinates of my friends in Real-life and in Secondlife. I had to choose: meet with my friends instantly or make a closer selection. I decided for the latter because I wanted to talk about a very specific subject; hotels in the Algarve. I always wanted to have a few weeks of holidays there and surely somewhere among my network there must be someone with the same special passion. I typed in my request and the system gave me a choice of three people in my network and 8 other specialists to the subject.

One of the specialists looked very appealing to me. Judging from her biography, photos and short videos in her online profile. Also her communication - style and stereotype seemed to match my own, so I selected to meet Verity on her location on GoogleLife, the second-life version of Google-Earth.
It was really amazing how Google Earth had developed over the years. Tens of thousands of programmers, mostly in India and Eastern Europe had created the GoogleLife.com after the huge success of Secondlife. GoogleLife was even more successful because it had something Secondlife didn’t have: a close resemblance to Real-life. You just got on through your TV screen and flew towards a copy of real-life in 3D.

So instead of taking the airplane to the Algarve I met with the avatar of Verity in the Algarve in GoogleLife. We decided to have a drink at a terrace in the small marketplace of Fuseta. Her Avatar was breathtaking. Her profile showed me that it was a close real-life resemblance, actually made out of real picture of her. I knew of course that some wrinkles and a few pounds of excessive weight where probably auto-erased from her Avatar-settings, but nevertheless..

We ordered a few virtual drinks and discussed the scenery; the old men shuffling by for a meeting in the local cafe and the tourists sitting on the terrace nearby ordering some local fish fresh from the market. Being an expert of the scenery, Verity showed me some integrated videos of the town and interesting features. I told her that I wanted to have a closer look at a hotel at the beach, so we teleported to the main lobby. In the lobby I looked around and noticed the guest-book where other guest had entered their recommendations. It looked very promising so far, so I asked Verity to show me some rooms, the dining area and the swimming pool. This GoogleLife hotel was fully equipped with integrated high resolution RL cameras, so the information which I saw were up to 73 % real and life images, which added to the overall score of the hotel.

I was having a good time with Verity and remarkably she seemed to enjoy herself with me too. We shared our passion of the Algarve and had eye for the same details in the landscape and… each other. Well, I will not tell you what happened next, I can testify that the beds were good enough for a short online experience with my brand-new ‘kinky-suit’ which interacted with Verity’s suit online. Naturally you had to pay for that extra ’service’ at the hotel lobby, but VR receptionists were perfectly discrete because my privacy settings were set on ‘full-privacy’.

So it turned out to be a quite active day after all and when was satisfied and logging out I couldn’t help to wonder: will Real-life ever be the same again…?

Got any ideas for tests or do you want strategic / consulting advise?: email me, have a look at my profile Regards, Ray