Virtual Worlds in the Trough of Disillusionment and Why That’s a Good Thing
I recently gave a talk to Austin Energy on the Metaverse and how they could use Virtual Worlds for meetings, education/outreach, and data visualization. One way I provided a wider context was to lay out where I think we are on Gartner’s Hype Cycle, using Second Life as the symbol for the whole VW industry. (I know, I know. It’s not the whole industry, but it’s a wonderful symbol.)
Starting last summer, I would venture to say all metaverse development companies saw their business fall off. Even Second Life saw 30 day uniques bounce around 900,000, even as their registrations continued it’s climb past 10 million. We can pin the marker on the Wired article “How Madison Avenue is Wasting Millions of Dollars on a Deserted Second Life,” but whether that was a cause or an effect depends on what side of the story you stand. Still, it’s a useful marker for what Gartner calls “The Trough of Dissolusionment.” I think that’s where we are now. Now, my own personal circumstances may be contributing to my view, but I think that was a marker, too, that we were sliding down into the Trough of Dissolusionment.
However, I think this is ultimately a good thing.
Why?
Because I think Ray Kurzweil is right that the rate of technological change increases at a logarithmic rate and not a geometric rate. This means that technological change is getting faster and faster. Likewise, I think the evolution of new technologies like Virtual Worlds are moving through the Gartner Hype Cycle faster. VW’s took only two years to crash, whereas the web took at least four. Despite the dot bomb crash of 2000, by 2003, the industry had surpassed where it was prior to the crash and was doing it on a real, sustainable basis.
Likewise, I think going through the Trough of Dissolusionment gets us up the slope of productivity faster. Meaning, sometime within the next 12-24 months, real work will be getting done in VW’s and the value we saw most likely will return, although not in the same form. While it will probably remain dark for the next year-ish, the future looks OK.
Here’s my unsolicited take on this: the Gartner cycle affects whom it affects — technology and its companies. It’s a formulaic understanding that may or may not serve to predict the behaviour of individuals and groups *using* technology — it may for some, and may not for others. It’s not like there is a Hegelian animated “history” that one can “predict” by its “patterns” — any real historian will tell you that.
And Ray Kurzweil, who of course has a very sectarian take on all this with his untested theory of “the Singularity”, has a vested interested in seeing this technology as accelerating and merging and taking over — and perhaps it will run — but in fits or starts or stops, even, because people don’t always do what you think they will do. There are many counterforces to Kurzweil’s “Singularity” — and thank God for them.
VWs didn’t crash, Joel. Perhaps yours did. Last time I checked, World of Warcraft had millions more, there were new pet worlds and kids worlds springing up all over, even the US Congress had a virtual hearing — I really don’t think this is a dead cat bounce. Perhaps it’s just your own personal VW crashed.
I always find it fascinating that people who watched the cycle of Web 1.0 with its hype and walled gardens breaking down and more hype and crash think that the next iteration *will have to by law happen exactly the same way*. Who says?
It could all be looked at differently. Social media and virtual worlds are about people, and there are more of them pouring in every day. People keep pouring into Facebook, Twitter, and even Second Life, which seems to have peaked for you. As a small business, I’m finding I have more customers than ever, even to expand cautiously, because there are so many new Brazilians, Japanese, Russian, etc. coming in. One can’t be giddy about this, because SL constantly expands and contracts in lurches that can really leave you stuck.
The next thing everybody is supposed to predict and do is “education” and therefore they are pre-set to say “Oh, education is the next big thing” and “Oh, education is the slope of productivity”. Well, it’s merely that education seemed to be the cautious last to come in to adapt among the early adaptors so they are still doing their thing. It could all be going very differently. I think you can’t create pre-set history templates of this Hegelian type and then look for their patterns to jump out at you, I think you have to keep an open mind.