Business & Games: The Blog

However, Wikipedia tells us “Out of 1 billion camera phones to be shipped in 2008, smartphones, the higher end of the market with full email support, will represent about 10% of the market or about 100 million units.“, already becoming a serious competitor to laptops (projected to have gained on laptop sales in 12 to 18 months) and mobile broadband internet usage went up 154% in 2007, so obviously the market is growing, and it’s potential is obvious.

Mobile devices are always on, always close, and perceived to be very personal (more personal than a PC). It contains much more valuable information than any online social network, as the people who I actually call are a lot more influential to me, and my environment than a list of ‘would be’ friends on facebook. It has already become one of the primary tools of production for the internet (Youtube clips, Utterz, Twitter) and are available everywhere.

The Google Android mobile operating system is the most recent ‘buzz’ in the mobile world, and recently got rebuzzed when the Japanese software company EitaroSoft, inc., announced it’s 3D virtual world ‘Lamity’ to run on Android. The world supports up to 400 people in one place, in typical ‘manga’ Japanese cartoon style. To be honest the world looks more like a gameboy game rather than Second Life as it’s comstantly compared to in a somewhat awkward promotion video:

Of course this isn’t the first mobile virtual world initiative, but it did trigger one big question: What is the purpose of having this virtual world on a mobile phone? Is a copy of the virtual worlds as we know them on the PC (except using a smaller screen and more awkward tools for typing) really all the combination mobile phones + virtual worlds have to offer? As stated before, these ‘phones’ are communication devices per definition, they are mobile, allow photographing/filming on location, are always on and can be tied to geographical locations (and physical movement). All advantages over the PC rather then to work with the limitations.

The actual application of virtual worlds in mobile environment is still very unclear to me, but the smart mashup potential is already here. However, we will still have to find clear advantages in combining these tools, and the value of 3D worlds in these combinations (perhaps as a third problem, battery sustainability). It’s still too much on the ‘just because its possible’ level and picking up some buzz in a new hype cycle again before thinking trough new applications and the problems VW’s would solve.

Original Post: http://digado.nl/does-android-dream-of-virtual-worlds.html