Virtual world technologies are still in a very early stage of evolution. The Palace is the simplest form of an avatar virtual world, offering an integration of graphic images with text chat and a straightforward server installation. The richest interactive experiences today are available with WorldsAway that provides more extensive user controlled animations and interactive objects. The Palace WorldsAway Virtual worlds could eventually attract a majority of virtual community participants. Fujitsu's research indicates that about half of text chatters strongly prefer WorldsAway to text chat, and about one-fifth of people who do not like text chat do enjoy WorldsAway, indicating that penetration could extend well beyond the 20 percent of active text chatters and approach the 70 percent of occasional chatters.
Today there are significant hurdles for a user to overcome to use virtual worlds.
Multiple megabytes of software must be downloaded and, as with any new application, individuals must learn how to use the software. As developers mitigate the hurdles, these environments will become increasingly popular and potentially could achieve penetrations equivalent to or greater than those of text chat. Until the downloads and user interface issues are mitigated however, we believe that only about 10 percent of total community participants will use virtual world services. Despite low near-term numbers, there are still strong reasons for community developers to begin utilizing these environments today. First, virtual worlds generate usage rates that are multiples of any other virtual community building block.