Re: [vos-d] blog mention of VOS
Ken -- as Reed said, you've pretty much nailed our planned revenue model, but it's good to see you come up with the same ideas, meaning they arn't too exotic (and thus will appeal to potential investors.) On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 01:50:54PM -0800, Ken Taylor wrote: Of course, for *any* of this to make money, people will have to want to use VOS, and you'll need a solid product and good user base to start with. So a big question you have to address is... why VOS, and why not some other multi-user shared-space technology? How exactly are you going to crush the huge foothold that second-life has at the moment? Having a solid product is absolutely the biggest step, which is precisely why we're seeking funding to support full time development. I have been working on some demos for s4, and it was interesting to come back after not working on it for a while and refresh my mind as to what does work well and what doesn't. Interestingly, a lot of VOS development has been driven by what makes the 3D browser easy to implement. Since the non-threaded s3 Ter'Angreal would often go nonresponsive for many seconds due to I/O waiting, s4 introduced threading, including asynchronous callbacks that could happen in any thread. As it turns out, the threading model in s4, while fine for the server process, was disasterously bad for Ter'Angreal stability. The upcoming s5 will address concurrency again with a new model that should prove much easier to use. Our greatest advantage, fundamentally, is that we've gone through a a number of iterations of design and implementation already, and so we bring a lot of experience to the table in connecting our ideas about the architechture to actual implementation issues that crop up when you sit down to write a real user-facing application. Being free software is our other big advantage, since that narrows down the field of serious competition to Verse and Croquet. Second Life doesn't count unless/until Linden Labs releases their server software, or people start running their own servers based on OpenSim in large numbers, which would effectively constitute a major fork of the Second Life platform. Well I like to think of it as an analogy - right now second-life is king. And services like second-life, there, and active worlds are much like the proprietary online service providers of the early 90s. Back then, AOL was king, and prodigy and compuserve held solid places in the market as well. But then came the web - an open, decentralized system that anyone could serve content on. For a while, the proprietary ISPs and the web were side-by-side, but eventually the web overtook everything and the ISPs had to re-factor their services to work within it. That's precisely the analogy I've been using, and I think it's pretty accurate. VOS is kinda like the web (Web 3.0? Maybe. I'm not sure I like these buzzwords... but some VCs might!). It's slated to be an open, decentralized technology through which anyone can publish content and which not any one company controls. My prediction is that the AOL that is second-life will never really go away, but eventually the proprietary, closed, separated systems will have to move aside and make room for an open, decentralized, interconnected metaverse platform. And what you need to do is convince some VCs that VOS is going to be that platform ;) People have coined the term Web 3.D... But except for the actual Web3D (VRML/X3D) efforts, when you start to dig into aspects of the web that really made it successful I don't know of any technology besides VOS that really survives the Web analogy. (VRML would have been great had they addressed multiuser issues a lot sooner, and not created something so topheavy that it requires months of effort to do anything more complicated that import/export static meshes.) Announcements of new 3D virtual worlds seem to be coming weekly if not daily, so my hope is the odds are good that we'll be able to find some investor who's palms are itchy to get in on the 3D market ;-) I actually have been strongly advised to avoid venture capital at this stage, and instead have been working connections with people who are interested in funding free software development. (Of course, there's another huge part of all this that I haven't covered, and that's convincing the VCs that not only does your technology have potential, but that you're going to be able to properly manage the project: That you'll be able to keep the technology development on track, hire people and set up the logistics required to roll out all the services through which you hope to make money, and of course estimate how much it's all gonna cost. This is all something that I really don't know much about, and will probably be a huge challenge to figure out!) Very true. Well, I hope that I can at least point to active community here on our little mailing list to show that people are really
Re: [vos-d] blog mention of VOS
On 09/03/07, Peter Amstutz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This made me smile: http://slgames.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/alternatives-to-second-life/ ``Virtual Object System - Worthy of note purely because they share the dream of creating The Metaverse. There's not really a lot to see yet, but the reason is that they're taking a very from the ground up approach. IF this every lauches, it will end up being fast and reliable. Their wiki is active, so it's worth keeping an eye on. If they every decide to go for VC funding, they could crush everything else.'' There is also a comment on the blog post which clarifies a few points the original author made -- whoever CrystalShard Foo is, thanks :-) Regarding the last point (the funding, not the crushing), I am currently working on writing up development and design plans and working towards the actual proposal we will present to potential funding sources. If anyone has any special experience writing proposals or working with investors, please contact me. Since we're going for a distinctly nontraditional business model (open source, open development, community involvement early and as much as possible) some of this is uncharted territory... Hi, I am a bit behind on these emails so may be saying things already covered but, One thing that may help: We once got some funding from our telco mainly *because* we were open source etc. They wanted technology that would look attractive to businesses to take up and the low cost of an open tech, it's long term maintainability were some strong points in favour. The pitch was to offer technology that would lead to higher use/take up of broadband for rich media applications. This helps broadband businesses to make money. The other thing is that other businesses can now see examples of business models that started off offering free technology and now make money from some added value/premium accounts etc. SL, google earth, ... etc. chris [ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet] [ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ] [ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ] -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFF8OamaeHUyhjCHfcRAn+zAKCMWF5VLbeheE7eEQrdHZzq8jJgvQCgpPBL eK+PRroiLOpzp8E+8eJP438= =fpr4 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d -- http://www.planet-earth.org http://ping.com.au -- It be a great secret: there be more truth at the centre. ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] blog mention of VOS
On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 23:46 -0500, Peter Amstutz wrote: investors, please contact me. Since we're going for a distinctly nontraditional business model (open source, open development, community involvement early and as much as possible) some of this is uncharted territory... No it is not uncharted if you are subscribed to the Executive Boardroom... If a rising tide raises all boats, then open sourcing is the next big tide in the world of technology. Sun Executive Boardroom is pleased to present an interview with Senior Vice President of Software Marketing Peder Ulander, who joins us to discuss the myriad of doors that open sourcing opens for developers, enterprises and customers. Open Source Galvanizing the New Market Economy Q: How do you define open source software? Q: What are the business benefits to open source? Q: What are the business benefits to a standards-based approach? Q: What are the risks associated with open source? Q: Why is the network the lifeblood for open sourcing? Q: What new markets does open sourcing present? Q: Do people have to choose between commercial software and open source software? Q: How do you make money on open-sourced software? Q: What do you think the future holds in this area? http://www.sun.com/emrkt/boardroom/newsletter/0107leadingvision.html -- Entrante.fir Search name: excremento Find items: If any criteria are met Sender contains unclean Recipients contains unclean Subject contains unclean Message Body contains unclean Source Account is HEBLACK, J [EMAIL PROTECTED] Then Move to Folder Inbox/Air alert ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] blog mention of VOS
Peter Amstutz wrote: Regarding the last point (the funding, not the crushing), I am currently working on writing up development and design plans and working towards the actual proposal we will present to potential funding sources. If anyone has any special experience writing proposals or working with investors, please contact me. Since we're going for a distinctly nontraditional business model (open source, open development, community involvement early and as much as possible) some of this is uncharted territory... I work at a startup, but I don't really pay too much attention to the VCs or the business strategy, and I certainly have never written a business plan. Besides, we're a bit more of a traditional startup model - have new technology, patent it, make product, sell product, make money, pay VCs. Funding VOS is going to be a bit different. But in case you care, here are my thoughts on the issue. The VCs are going to want to know [at least] two things - how is VOS going to make money, and why is it different from anything else out there. It's really important for startups to have some edge - something that no one else is doing. As for making money... you can't really sell the software, as it's open source. I mean, you can sell distributions of it, but you're not going to profit much off of that. I can think of a few ways Interreality.org can make some revenue: -Support. If some big customers decide to adopt VOS, they'll probably want a support structure. You can take the red hat enterprise linux model here and dedicate programmers and a support team to helping out other companies who want to set up and maintain a VOS server. They may even need custom plugins written for them, or have specific features they need to go into newer versions of VOS. Your intimate relationship with the core VOS libraries will make you the best choice for these support services, and this is probably the best bet for revenue over time. Big companies especially really like the comfort that comes with a well-supported product, and often will choose a well-supported (though perhaps shoddy and expensive) product over a high-quality, free, yet completely unsupported one. If you can have a high-quality product that is also officially supported - all the beter! Another possible line of revenue is to publish books about programming in the VOS environment, A3DL, supporting a VOS server, etc... (O'Reilly?) -Hosting. Interreality.org could set up a server farm and provide online space for people to host their own worlds, and charge (or use advertising support) for different levels of hosting. Kinda like the geocities of the metaverse. Obviously other companies can set up hosting, as well, so there's less of a distinction from competitors, here, except that you guys really know the technology and can tweak it to make your servers run the best - and you can be the first up and get a good solid user-base running to help keep business through network effects. -Portal. The yahoo of the metaverse. Not only hosting sites and content, but you could serve as the starting point to go and visit any other VOS-based content on the internet, and to serve as a basic place for news, information, games, shopping, community, or whatever else people do on portal sites these days. As other people set up their own VOS servers you would link to them to help expand the interreality metaverse. Primary revenue here would probably be through advertising... but hey, maybe google would want to buy your portal so they can continue their quest to be the one-portal-for-everything-on-the-internet-ever - and getting google to buy you certainly isn't a bad revenue model ;) -Content creation. You could also have services to design and implement virtual worlds/objects/etc for clients. Again, your close relationship to the technology and early start will help differentiate you, but this might be the riskiest revenue path and most open to competition. -Donations. They can't hurt :) Of course, for *any* of this to make money, people will have to want to use VOS, and you'll need a solid product and good user base to start with. So a big question you have to address is... why VOS, and why not some other multi-user shared-space technology? How exactly are you going to crush the huge foothold that second-life has at the moment? Well I like to think of it as an analogy - right now second-life is king. And services like second-life, there, and active worlds are much like the proprietary online service providers of the early 90s. Back then, AOL was king, and prodigy and compuserve held solid places in the market as well. But then came the web - an open, decentralized system that anyone could serve content on. For a while, the proprietary ISPs and the web were side-by-side, but eventually the web overtook everything and the ISPs had to re-factor their services to work within it. VOS is kinda like the web (Web 3.0? Maybe. I'm
Re: [vos-d] blog mention of VOS
On Sat, 2007-03-10 at 13:50 -0800, Ken Taylor wrote: Peter Amstutz wrote: Regarding the last point (the funding, not the crushing), I am currently working on writing up development and design plans and working towards the actual proposal we will present to potential funding sources. If anyone has any special experience writing proposals or working with investors, please contact me. Since we're going for a distinctly nontraditional business model (open source, open development, community involvement early and as much as possible) some of this is uncharted territory... P.A. Today a lady whose name is Happy with 15 years UNIX experience said that I should look at Tech Soup. I did. It is The Technology Place for Nonprofits. Here is a link that was quickly begotten: How Technology is Funded: The Basics http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/funding/page4808.cfm J.A.H. -- Entrante.fir Search name: excremento Find items: If any criteria are met Sender contains unclean Recipients contains unclean Subject contains unclean Message Body contains unclean Source Account is HEBLACK, J [EMAIL PROTECTED] Then Move to Folder Inbox/Air alert ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] blog mention of VOS
On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:46:30 -0500, Peter Amstutz wrote: If they every decide to go for VC funding, they could crush everything else.'' Eh, let's hope ;-) best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. - personal: http://www.laranja.org/ technical:http://lalo.revisioncontrol.net/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
