Combining Virtual Worlds and Social Networking

I came across an interesting article on eWeek today highlighting IBM’s newest plan to mash their Second Life virtual reality world with Lotus Connections, which is their social networking platform. Exactly what features from there social networking platform is IBM looking to fuse with virtual worlds? IBM’s programmers are currently working on creating avatars on Second Life that are able to display content from their respective Lotus Connections profile. In other words, you’ll be able to view their skills, projects they’ve worked on in the past, experience, and possibly their blogs exposed somewhere in the virtual city.

Even though Second Life provides a great visual and is far more immersive than Facebook, is it appropriate for the Enterprise workplace? After all, the main purpose of this fusion is to improve on collaboration therefore executing tasks at a much quicker pace. Gartner analyst Adam Sarner makes an interesting comparison:

"If I want to buy a car or somebody I know comes down with a medical condition, I'm not going to go into a virtual world and ask other people their experiences. Text is a perfect tool to go in and get other opinions."

There’s no doubt that within the next couple of years organizations will invest heavily on building virtual reality platforms. Does this merge fit in with your enterprise needs?