Irving Wladawsky Berger, one of my favorite former IBM’ers, talks about how the real killer app for social networking will be conducting meetings in-world. The idea is to gather together people (or their avatars) into a virtual meeting space and do seminars and training sessions. The ability to communicate with the attendees (via the built-in chat software) as well as view videos and other materials make for a more compelling experience. While my own experience with Second Life is still as a rank beginner, I think he is going in the right direction.

I think that it would be a huge breakthrough if we can significantly improve the quality of meetings through the use of new technology-based capabilities like virtual worlds – simultaneously making them more appealing to the people involved as well as making them more effective in achieving their goals.   I am convinced that such breakthroughs will inevitably lead to serious financial returns for the companies involved.