I’d like to tell one more time about some interesting people I met in the Silicon Valley in the last few days. Secondary markets are interesting when people spend time in online games or in virtual economies like Second Life. On exactly this market focuses the Company Sparter and I had the pleasure to speak with its CEO Dan Kelly last week in Mountain View. Virtual goods are an interesting topic indeed and are becoming a bigger market I guess, when we speak about social networks, MMOG’s and virtual worlds, thanks for our discussion Dan!

During the last days I also had the pleasure to meet with Vladlen Koltun (Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, Martin Fischer (Professor of Civil and Environment Engineering and Computer Science , Stanford University). Martin Fischer showed me and told me about his research projects with the objective of more efficient as well as effective work with 4D visualisation (3D plus time) within the construction business. He believes furthermore, that such visualisations can get interesting together with the internet, which I think would absolutely make sense.

I also enjoyed discussions these days with Susan Lucas (CEO SDForum, the emerging technology connection ), Greg Howes (Geo Sherpa, focusing on 3D visualisation for Real Estate), Bruce Joy (CEO Vastpark, a virtual worlds platform that enables anyone to create their own virtual world), and Frantz Lohier (Managing Director New Platforms and Technologies, Logitech).

Finally on Monday, on my last day in the Silicon Valley, I had the great pleasure to look into the future with Mike Liebhold. Mike is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto. His particular interest in the 3D web he rather calls the “geospatial web” which means a web that contains geographic integrity rather than a web that would be an arbitrary place. After our exciting discussion I asked Mike how he would be able to look into the future, his answer: “I live in the future, I’ve been living in the future for a long time” – and I’m sure he was right.

By the way, the Bay Area is also awesome on the water: On Saturday it was blowing 27 knots on average at the San Mateo Coyote Point, and we had great fun windsurfing in the Bay! The other picture shouldn’t be over-interpreted, but one can definitely have a good time with a Z4 around the Golden Gate Bridge at such a beautiful day

Currently I am flying over the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere between Toronto and Zurich. I can recommend everyone who hasn’t been yet in the Bay Area to go there. The energy of this culture and the diversity of people are extraordinary. I had a great time and I look forward to finishing my summary of all these discussions about the future of the 3D web, especially where the promising applications are lying, where the major challenges are, and which the key players might be in the next few years. Silicon Valley Goodbye and Switzerland Ahoi – thanks a lot for reading my posts!

Cheers, Daniel

This entry was posted on Freitag, März 7th, 2008 at 07:36 and is filed under Startup Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.