Second Life: the New Trend in Events?

   This post is by Kena – Check out her blog here on twitter. Meet the rest of the team!

We talked in the past about Second Life (SL), a virtual, online world where members interact through avatars.

How has it developed for the industry?

It’s interesting how Second Life has grown according to different circumstances. The first hotel chain to be part of SL was Starwood in 2006. They actually built the Aloft prototype there while the first hotels were being constructed in real life. This was mainly to engage people and make changes on architecture or design according to real time feedback.

The Chelsea Hotel (highly recommend to see the video of the link) showed up in SL to raise awareness about their history and involvement with the community. The Crown Plaza Hotel leveraged on virtual worlds specifically for meetings.

Events

And of course the fun part couldn’t be missing! There you go, a few pictures of social events.

[All the pictures are from Second Life]

Photo by rafeejewell via Flickr
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Will Telepresence Change the Meetings Industry?

   This post is by Kena – She is @KenaSiu on twitter. Meet the rest of the team!

Telepresence is reshaping the world of telecoferencing, with a real time rendering hard to match.

What is Telepresence?

Telepresence is a group of technologies aimed at connecting people far apart instantly with a superbly real time rendering. It consists on a combination of multiple high-definition monitors, cameras, microphones, speakers and custom-made studios. It brings the concept of a video conference forward, revolutionizing interaction.

What’s the trend?

According to Frost & Sullivan Telepresence will grow immensely through 2013 due to the use of new technologies and the need to be connected with colleagues, partners and customers in an instant offering a great human interaction.

Who offers it?

There are several corporations inn the market such a Cisco, Hewlett-Packard (Halo), Telanetix (Video Telepresence), Polycom or Sony (3D Telepresence). Since the need of connectivity keeps growing constantly several organizations like Marriott and Starwood hotels have already made partnership with vendors to improve their business offering.

Benefits

Besides giving the illusion of being in the same room, capturing the body language and giving less exhaustion to users, Telepresence offers much more benefits such as:

- Real time connectivity
- Instant connection
- Sharp sound
- Quality, size and clarity of images
- Doesn’t bother and stress with unwanted latency
- Increases productivity
- Enhances communication

Tell us about your experience

Have you used Telepresence in your meetings? How do you think it will affect the industry?