Avon Uses 3D Conferencing For National Sales Meetings

In an article published this week by Network World, and relayed by the Association of Virtual Worlds, two 3DXplorer customers talk about their experience with the platform used for web conferencing. Here is one of them, through an excerpt from the mentioned article:

… Global cosmetics giant Avon Products had a problem. The teenage girls who were the primary salesforce for its “mark” brand of youth-oriented cosmetic products had a hard time sitting through Web conferences composed mostly of PowerPoint presentations. But the need for online meetings was unavoidable – the girls were located all over the country, and needed to participate in training and attend sales meetings.

“When you’re sitting in a Web conference, it’s easy to be distracted, check your email, watch TV,” says Natalie Wood, assistant director for the Center of Consumer Research at Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s University, which was asked by Avon to help solve this problem.
The Center for Consumer Research had experience working in various environments that were more engaging than watching slides on the Web while on a conference call. The most popular of these was Second Life, but this platform wasn’t appropriate for Avon, chiefly because of its steep learning curve and technical requirements.
The platform the Center for Consumer Research decided on, 3DXplorer from Altadyn, is a Java-based online meeting space where companies can fully customize the virtual environment and hold meetings similar to the ones they would have in Second Life.
“It’s Web-enabled,” Wood says. “You don’t need a fancy computer, and you don’t have many firewall problems. And you do not need to be highly competent to use 3DXplorer. Second Life definitely has a steep learning curve.”
The Center for Consumer Research has already begun holding virtual meetings for Avon’s young sales agents in the 3DXplorer environment, and the feedback has been positive.
“One of the things we’re finding is that the girls no longer feel anonymous,” she says. “Girls are commenting to each other, ‘It’s wonderful to finally meet you!’ – even though they’re not actually meeting, they’re meeting the avatar.”
They also felt that the meetings were more serious and legitimate, she adds.
Avon’s virtual meeting space in 3DXplorer is modeled after its headquarters in New York City, and visitors can actually see the New York skyline when they look out of the virtual windows.
“It gives them the feeling that they’re really in the ‘mark’ offices in New York,” Wood says….

Read more here.
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The Museum of Me – Interactive or Not ?

You may have already noticed the new Facebook app that Intel released a few days ago, called “The Museum of Me”. There are right now 374,732 fans of the app. The Museum of Me is ultimately an ad for Intel’s Core i5 processors, but it’s a very interesting small app, well designed, accompanied by a nice music to which you can’t be indifferent. Some people dislike it. For instance, Ben Rooner, a Wall Street Journal blogger considers it as the greatest gift to narcissists, (well, you better get over it or the majority of the population is composed of narcissists, given the popularity of social networks) , while some other bloggers consider it as a must to try, or an education in data privacy. Here’s a sample video of what facebookers have been doing with it in the past few days:

Intel’s Museum of Me, invites the users to tour their Facebook life in a visually developed virtual museum to explore who you are. The app pulls up photos of friends, nicely placed on a wall, your own photos taken from your uploaded pictures in the next room, your videos in another room (didn’t work for me) , whatever you have liked in another room (another feature not working for me), and finally a room where a few robotic arms catch some flying pictures of your friends to build your own picture (mosaic style) by assembling pictures of your life/friends, and showing your network of friends (once again very visually). I really enjoyed the experience. Seeing flying pictures of some friends being caught by a robotic arm and put into a frame to compose my picture, showing how friends or connections are part of our lives, touched me. So thumbs up Intel, for having used the same type of emotions created by other 3D environments and virtual worlds in a simple video.

However, to avoid being a disposable app, for only a one-time use, this app is missing just a few features (summarized as INTERACTIVITY ) to become a more permanent space for hanging out with friends, chatting, talking (Voice/IP), sharing pictures live and commenting them, sharing souvenirs from the past, or simply sharing some moments from a recent event. To illustrate my point, i spent 15 minutes building my museum in 3DXplorer, and here’s the result of a tour inside my INTERACTIVE 3D space called: The Museum of Me – Interactive. Click on the links below:

If interested in experiencing the simple quickly built “The Museum Of Me” – Interactive in 3DXplorer, built from one of the free templates, enter here.

So let us know how you like it? Interactive or Not ?

–Darius Lahoutifard

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http://polls.linkedin.com/vote/137900/twejk

Ten Challenges 3D Virtual Meeting Platforms Face in Corporations?

Corporations are used to Webex-like solutions (and even somewhat to Virtual Event platforms) for their Virtual meetings. The top 4 platforms in traditional virtual meetings are: Cisco’s Webex,  GotoMeeting from Citrix Online, Microsoft Netmeeting and Adobe Connect.  When they need more sense of presence and more interaction and more humanized meetings then they usually used to go for a face-to-face, even though some have been interested in pseudo-3D Virtual Events platforms for large virtual conferences and virtual trade-shows.

3D immersive solutions are filling in the gap by offering an in-between solution, where you can save time and money by keeping it virtual, while increasing engagement and interactivity, thanks to 3D immersion, avatar based platforms.

 

A Virtual Conference on 3DXplorer

Those who have successfully experienced this alternative, report the following benefits:

• 3D immersive spaces create a Sense of Presence,
• They create Feelings closer to face-to-face than to traditional virtual meetings of the Space
• Avatars lead to more “Human” Interactions, more engagement and more networking among attendees
• Avatars and 3D immersive lead to stronger Visual Memory of the Meeting
• Importing 3D objects improves communication and collaboration on 3D virtual products

This is an ideal solution for corporations as they have the best of both worlds; reduced cost/saved time (as the platform is running from the users’ computers), and increased engagement and more human interaction, VoIP, avatars interactions similar to face-to-face meetings.

So, given these huge benefits,  how can this adoption of 3D immersive spaces for meetings get accelerated?

What are the real challenges and obstacles to overcome when adopting 3D immersive platforms in the Enterprise?

We, at Altadyn, have been in business since 2002. We pioneered browser-based and download-free virtual spaces; 3DXplorer multi-user avatar based platform was introduced 2 years ago and VoIP was added last year. Now, the adoption is taking off; with thousands of virtual attendees in our platform each week, and growing, we are seeing a clear acceleration in the adoption. We are getting closer to mainstream adoption every month, but what have been the issues?  Here are some of the most common requests from the corporate users, that we have resolved in the past few years.

1. Software Download or Installation: IT managers in enterprise can’t let users install ANY software without their involvement, tests, approvals or certifications. It doesn’t matter how small is the download. As far as the platform requires IT approval, then it becomes a problem. This has been forever the problem for Second-Life’s adoption in Enterprise until Linden Lab decided last year to refocus on the entertainment markets. Obviously being Browser-based helps, but it’s not enough. If your browser-based system requires a plug-in which is not pre-installed on corporate computers , it’s going to prevent users to attend meetings,  even a tiny active-x installation is an issue.
2. Enterprise Firewalls:  the platform should not require open ports other than port 80, otherwise similar accessibility issues will need to be addressed.
3. Bandwidth: Most 3D immersive platforms require large bandwidth for smooth animation and for VoIP. This not an issue in most corporate offices, but is sometimes a real issue in remote offices, and obviously one of the main reasons for these meetings or for getting remote offices people closer to large branches or to corporate offices.
4. Mac Support / Multi-OS / Multi-browser: Although Windows is the main platform in Enterprise, almost 10% of Enterprise users are not running Windows. As far as the browsers are concerned, users are starting to have their own preferences, so supporting all browsers helps for a faster adoption.
5. User generated content: As soon as the corporate users discovers the 3D immersion, they want to replicate their key strategic places: their Executive Briefing Center, their Show room, their Command Center, etc. Didn’t we mention the sense of presence as a key advantage? Well once they get it, they want it all. The 3D platform should allow easy import of 3D models. Moreover, corporate users are asking for open architecture to embed hyperlinks, documents, videos, audio, and even more recently, twitter feeds and more.
6. Scalability: Meetings become conferences and customer days become global users group meetings.  Corporate users attend meetings from a few participants up to thousands. 3D platforms should be able to handle small meetings as well as large corporate events with thousands of attendees. This means cloud computing support with off-the-shelf pre-configured instances with major cloud computing platforms such as those of AMAZON-EC2 and MICROSOFT.
7. Learning curve: Users won’t spend too much time in learning the environment; chat, VoIP, sitting, laser pointing and desktop sharing should all be one-click features.
8. Simple avatars: Long and complex processes to create an avatar are not welcome for most business users. They want to select an avatar quickly and get in the room.
9. Walking & turning: For most business users who have never played a 3D game, this is not an easy reflex, even though the software only requires pressing on the keyboard’s arrow button to walk. They are not used to walk in Webex! Interestingly, unless they have not gone through this change, they’ll not notice the benefit of 3D immersive, as the immersion will only be felt after walking and turning around.
10. Virtual behavior: Unlike in Webex, your gesture, movements and virtual body language is visible to others.  And of course, walking over a table or into another avatar is not appropriate, just like in the real world. Those situations, which bring some fun and ice-breaking moments, can also appear silly or contribute to the “non-serious” or “game” aspect of the meeting thus becoming fatal for its adoption in the Enterprise. They need to be used responsibly.

3DXplorer has left most of the above challenges behind, especially those which are technology-related. We are still assisting users in their move towards more sophisticated applications for virtual meetings and working with them on better setting their expectations.

 

They need to be used responsibly

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Why Virtual Events Look Like In-Person Events?

Since we launched ALTADYN 9 years ago, we regularly hear the above question. Why Virtual Events Look Like In-Person Events? Why Meeting in a 3D space ? Why using AVATARS? Why not having Virtual Events user-interface as simple as buying a book on AMAZON or renting a movie on NETFLIX ? Etc…

A few consultants who covered this space have done a decent work answering to these questions, including FROST & SULLIVAN (who predicts more “presence” will be required in Virtual Events), and THINKBALM (who has published several reports on this matter).

We see a few reasons why Virtual Events NEED to look like in-person events if they want to become mainstream:

• 3D immersive creates the Sense of Presence, and the Feeling of the Space
• Avatars lead to more « Human » Interactions, more engaging, more networking among attendees
• Avatars and 3D immersive lead to stronger Visual Memory of the Meeting
• Importing 3D objects improves communication and collaboration on 3D virtual products

Virtual Events: 3D avatar based Tradeshow with 3DXplorer

Have you ever questioned why corporations have always spent so much time and money in building well designed and greatly architect-ed headquarters, and reception areas? Do you have the same feeling when you walk in an underground dark railway station hallway, compared to when walking in a bright glass bridge with a green landscape around your meeting room? Are you familiar with the emotions that environments create in you?

The 3D immersive environment and its design by itself creates feelings in each attendee. Now add the fact that you see another avatar in front of you talking and/or chatting. Is it the same sense of communication compared to trying to visualize someone just by their name, in text, in the lower right corner of the screen?

Connecting attendees into a virtual event, so that they can see slides, hear a presenter, watch a video (live streamed or not), or even chat to each other, is a resolved problem since 10-15 years ago ( by Webex and webex like platforms). The same way netflix has done with movie watchers  or Amazon has done with book readers or Facebook has done for friends… a simple easy way to accomplish the needed tasks mentioned above. But why do people still go massively to in-person events?

The demand is now for more HUMAN Interaction, more ENGAGEMENT and for virtual events which are closer to the in-person events. So that the attendee “FEELS” like he/she is “THERE”, and interacts with the exhibitors and with other attendees.

Some book buyers, those who miss the human interaction and the seller’s advice, continue to drive a car and go to Barnes & Noble to buy a book where they spend a lot more time and money than just ordering online. Why do they do that? Because they miss something AMAZON is not offering today.

Now for Virtual Events, the HUMAN aspect is even much more crucial than for AMAZON. The goal of Virtual Events vendors should be to enable attendees participate to more events, get more content, be more engaged, connect more to each other, enjoy the experience and even have fun. All this in less time and at a lower cost than the in-person event. That’s why everyone tries to create that SENSE of PRESENCE. Some do it with background images(full-size 3D generated), and some go further with 3D immersive, avatar based solutions. In a platform like 3DXplorer, you can virtually “walk” on the same floor as other attendees, shake hand with each other, use your laser pointer to point out something on a slide or show an object to someone, see where each person is looking at, etc…you FEEL being in the same place. PRESENCE makes sense this way.

Now, are ALL Virtual Events going to look like in-person events? No. But unlike AMAZON for books, here we have the larger market who has not yet gone virtual, despite solutions being available since 10-15 years. because most virtual event platforms can’t provide that feeling of presence, and they simply don’t facilitate networking and engagement that is effective or fun.

If the Virtual Events market wants to deliver on its growth promises, it needs to develop something fundamentally different than Webex which will capture those in-person events.

Register for one of our upcoming webinars and give it a try, and Feel free to react…

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How Did 2010 Turn Out For The 3D Internet Market and For ALTADYN / 3DXplorer?

Virtual Worlds, web 3D, “Live 3D collaboration” or “Full 3D Virtual Events” represent different angles of vision for the same group of 3D immersive Internet technologies. As 2010 was clearly the year of emergence of 3D for consumers, I would like to discuss the evolution of this part of 3D internet technologies.

During 2010, AVATAR, the movie , 3D TV screens in the shops, controller-free gaming consoles such as Wii and Kinect, and glasses-free 3D TV, all played a key role to massively introduce 3D environments to all generations and not just to the younger generations , as games did in the past 15 years. This created a new dynamic wave for the 3D Internet in general.

As a testimony to this new 3D wave, Altadyn, now in its ninth year of business, accelerated its growth in 2010, with over 117% revenue increase compared to 2009  :

ALTADYN revenue growth 2009 - 2011

In the past 25 years in the 3D technologies and businesses, we have seen years which left their marks more than other years. For instance;

• 1982 was the year of foundation of Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Adobe and Autodesk, as well as the year TRON was released by Disney,
• 1987 was the year when 3D design and modeling applications became affordable to most 3D animators and engineers when  Sun introduced the first non proprietary OS on affordable workstations ,  and 1988 when PTC introduced the first parametric modeling technology ,
• 1995 when Hollywood started using the first realistic special effects in its productions or just the use of full 3D productions such as Toy Story by Pixar.
• 2010 was the year of Emergence of accessible virtual 3D environments for all, including consumers.

This general trend of emerging accessible 3D virtual environments strongly impacted technology providers, especially those offering 3D immersive software. Let’s have a look at a few lessons learned in 2010:

1) “Virtual Worlds , a la Second Life” are not meant to be for business, but for entertainment.

The Virtual Worlds market leader, Linden Lab, severely downsized it’s team, during 2010, stopped the Enterprise or B-to-B  Business, and focused on its core business which is entertainment and gaming. The company even hired a new CEO with a clear gaming background. Forterra Inc., a pioneer in this space went out of business, as well as it’s “half sister” company THERE, a leading virtual world. We learned that a virtual world needs to have a purpose. If it’s for entertainment, then it needs to follow the rules of a game business model and the consequences. If it is for business, it has to follow business requirements, be enterprise-friendly, available in SaaS mode (hosted, on-demand), compliant with corporate firewalls, with no software download, etc…

2) Virtual Events are taking off but customers need more engaging Virtual Events.

Within 2010, the tough economy and budgetary restrictions, corporations and event firms produced even more events virtually than in the past, using mostly non 3D web-ex type technologies or pseudo-3D applications, while starting to use full 3D immersive platforms as well. Although some cost reduction goals were fully achieved, they didn’t meet their goals in terms of direct customer interaction, lead generation, new business relationships (see the TSNN report, tables 9 and 10).  In another study, ROI of engagement, it apparent that customers need more engaging virtual events which facilitate networking and encourage active participation.

3) Perpetual Virtual Events or Permanent 3D Websites are needed more

Those clients, who experienced virtual events, notice that it’s much easier to setup a virtual event than a real event, and the cost of maintaining a virtual event space is a fraction of the cost of building it. Consequently, they are interested in more frequent virtual events  or even perpetual  trade-shows or show rooms where visitors can interact with company’s representatives, at any time. That’s the reason why 3DXplorer’s Meet-in-3D service is becoming more and more popular. This service saw a fast growth in 2010 and the trend for 2011 is continued. As a reminder, 3DXplorer/Meet-in-3D enables the transformation of anonymous visitors of a website into real prospects.

4) Other 3D Immersive  Applications are emerging, or continue their development

Among other applications of 3D internet which gained a lot of customer attentions, we noticed:

• Replicating strategic corporate facilities and enabling accessible virtual visits
• Simulation and training
• eLearning and virtual classrooms
• On-boarding and other HR applications
• Virtual Showrooms and Art galleries

The trend in 2011 is in the continuity of 2010, with the market getting shaped in a more determined manner as per the above orientations, and we all look forward to it.

Darius Lahoutifard
CEO

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New Release: 3DXplorer V 5.4.08 is released today!

Eight months after pre-announcing V5.4, and with an intensive and long set of tests and real meeting experiences, a new version of 3DXplorer V5.4 is released. As of today, the ‘Last Release” status is attached to V5.4.08.

The most important feature is a more robust and higher quality VOIP, which uses a dedicated port if the user’s firewall authorizes it (if not, the standard port 80 is used).

Among other new features:

• “Mute audience” button is replaced by a moderator’s control panel allowing a moderator to control separately voice, Desktop Sharing, lasers, chat moderation and video broadcast
• “Voice” button is replaced by “Mic” and “Speakers” buttons to increase users control on audio settings
• Presentation features (ie: Desktop Sharing, laser, video broadcast), voice and chat moderation can now be activated/blocked individually for each avatar
• Skinning import improved for max 2010 COLLADA exports
• Faster and more reliable network synchronization
• The size of a video overlay/popup can be set in the material editor
• New meeting planner with invitation text supporting 8 different languages for 3DX/Online Meeting and 3DX/Conferencing, and customizable invitation templates.
• And many bugs fixed.

Many of you have set your version to a test release to use VOIP, so please make sure you reset your space to LAST RELEASE status.

Enjoy the new features and please feedback.

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quidexpat.com Likes Meeting Website Visitors Live !

QuidExpat.com is a leading website where the French-speaking population around the world finds useful information on expatriation.

The website features a network of French-speaking professionals whose mission is to respond quickly and efficiently to questions of many individuals and businesses in different categories, such as expatriation, real estate, legal, employment, health, technology, etc …, over the phone. The provided services have been focused on the USA, so far. Other countries are about to be added.

Since a few weeks, their home page has a new amazing feature: an awesome 3D space to meet and greet visitors.

 

quidexpat 3D space built with 3DXplorer

Commenting on their use of 3DXplorer, Biba Pedron and Laurent Millour, co-founders of QuidExpat.com said:

“The 3DXplorer room is a great asset to our company. After seeing the whole potential of this new technology during the demo, we decided to acquire our own space to greet our visitors, show our customers the full extent of our services, and organize seminars on different topics related to expatriation.

Here are the reasons why we like our 3D room:

• It allows us to interact with customers all around the world in real time
• It sets us apart from the competition
• It gives us the opportunity to organize virtual seminars with attendees from all over the world
• It creates a buzz in the French-speaking community since QuidExpat is the pioneer in using this technology ”

Biba Pedron and Laurent Millour who successfully ran their first seminar, are now looking forward to even broader use of their 3D space: “No doubt that our 3D room will bring a lot of interest to our company, improve our customer service, and will make it easier to convey our message and services to our customers”.

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Tennaxia Demos Its Software Products Inside Virtual 3D Spaces.

Tennaxia provides a leading SaaS platform for Sustainable Development reducing manufacturers risks and enabling EH&S compliance. It’s a European technology leader, expanding its products and services on international markets.

In the past few months, the company’s challenge was to increase outreach to international customers, for sales and marketing, without spending millions of dollars in new offices and new hires. –A long time user of standard (2D) web conferencing solutions, Tennaxia looked for an advanced collaborative platform for presenting its solutions to oversea customers, with a higher sense of presence and interaction, in a warmer and closer context than traditional web conferencing tools.

After a 3DXplorer demo to the executive management team, the company’s leadership decided to build a virtual demo room, in an open green environment, designed in line with its corporate culture. The 3D space was used successfully for demonstrations and virtual sales meetings.

In a second phase, after a successful series of demos, the company started expanding the use of 3DXplorer to all its sales force, as well as the support and training team.

Benefits from the use of 3DXplorer are:

• Appearing “close” to those geographically distant customers
• Reducing travel costs
• Increasing efficiency of web presentations
• Increasing sales

Commenting the use of 3DXplorer at Tennaxia, the company’s Chief Executive , Bernard Fort declared: ” In a competitive market like the one we see now, it’s very important to differentiate ourselves and be “close” to our customers. Delivering our software demos in a 3D room is interesting as we can be close to our customers while controlling our costs. Also the fact that we don’t need anything else than JAVA is clearly an advantage.”

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Phase2Solutions Increases Revenue Thanks To 3DXplorer Products!

Experts in Central PA have their own website: CentralPAExperts.com . It was created to provide local business professionals with a resource and online community to assist in the advancement of commerce in the Central Pennsylvania region. This website serves as an interactive resource for local professionals to get answers to their questions, an opportunity to read expert articles that are pertinent to their professional life and an opportunity for them to share their expert knowledge and meet others within their business community.

Two 3DXplorer solutions  have recently been added to the site  (see here):

3DXplorer Meet-in-3D (3DX/Mi3D) : NEW 3D Virtual Office featured added to 3D Expert Lounge on website allowing each expert to have their own virtual space for private business meetings, sales presentations, etc.

3DXplorer Virtual Events Platform: Expert Virtual Events feature added allowing Expert Members to host virtual events in our 3D Conference Hall. Events are designed to attract new clients and providing valuable information to visitors at the same time.

The site is owned and operated by Phase 2 Solutions, whose President, Jason Verdelli states:

“Engaging website visitors on a consistent basis can be a difficult task. Just earlier this year I was looking for a program that would engage my website visitor at http://www.centralpaexperts.com to interact virtually the same way we do in “real life”. Most of the solutions out on the web that I was searching for were too over-priced and were not practical for a small to medium sized company. Then I found 3DXplorer. I was sold the minute I entered their 3D virtual conference room having actually talked, not typed, with staff members and be able to ask questions and collaborate in a way that simply is not out there on the web today. Visitors that attend events in my 3D space tend to buy more because they can interact closer to what I or someone on my staff is presenting. Overall, using their space has resulted in over $15,700 in revenue from new clients resulting from presentations recently. Clients have also mentioned that they prefer using the 3D space because there are no downloads and it is easy to use.”

Enter Jason’s Networking Hall, or attend one of their conferences here.

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Virtual Events: Why Settle For 2D or even 2.5D, If You Can Maximize Networking with Full 3D?

Attendees socialize and network naturally in Full 3D as it’s more engaging, gives a closer to face-to-face experience, and more real! Attendees are free to walk to where ever they like in an exhibition hall, or inside a booth, engage in conversations with others through Voice/IP, private chat or global chat, access to each other’s public profile and get the best of a virtual show. 3DXplorer is:

* More Networking
* More Engagement
* Closer to Face-to-Face
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See for yourself. Attend  a Live Full 3D presentation and see if it works for your next Virtual Event !

The best way to see what your attendees will feel is to try it by yourself and attend one of our own virtual conferences in full 3D. If you like it as an attendee, then your virtual event’s attendees will love it.

To participate to a 3DXplorer Virtual Event, register here.

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