Title: President and Founder, My Virtual Model
Communities and virtual worlds are ubiquitous in the media and in perceptions of people as trends. We went from mass media to personal media; the advertising is also morphing to customer relationship and avatar-based advertising. These changes were possible because of the wiki and the user-generated content applications: dictionaries, encyclopedias, Flickr, etc. Crowd sourcing and the open source movement are allowing a true democratization of innovation. Eric Von Hippel has shown how logical it is for corporations to open their innovation centers to users. With virtual models, the personalization is now visual, providing a true interface for customization and co-design.
It seems that mobility with standards and interoperability will reach out with devices like cells, iPhones, PDAs, etc. Personal communities and networks as virtual worlds will surround users in unprecedented ways. It will start by personal catalogs and stores and extend wherever it will be needed and wanted by the users. The passage from 2D to 3D on the Web as well as the virtual identity is the next big thing.
