August 24th, 2007
I have been waiting for more developments from Unype (a free mash-up of Google Earth, Skype, and, now, Facebook) since I first read about their work several months back, and my patience was rewarded by this recent Virtual Worlds News article. In it, Murat Aktihanoglu (Unype’s founder) offers some of his vision of a platform for the business of putting the Web on a globe.
“…People want to do something in Google Earth with multi-user applications,” said Aktihanoglu. “I think there will be a lot of different verticals.”
Already he’s worked with the government sector for emergency management tools and has also been contacted by universities for building out educational services. He’s also sees easy translation to the real estate world, envisioning that a market of developers will emerge who could translate blueprints into a virtual model for online open houses.
“I should point out that Second Life and others like it are virtual worlds,” said Aktihanoglu. “Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth are parallel worlds. You’re going to get a different crowd that’s doing businesses in each, but I don’t see them as competing. If you want an emergency preparedness application, you obviously use Google Earth. You don’t want to practice on a fantasy island, but that’s your first choice for promoting a movie in Second Life…”
Interesting thoughts and an even more interesting development. This is one area to keep an eye on.
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