Wikitecture - 3D Wiki Using Second Life

It's interesting to see how 3D immersive representations of design, discussion and collaboration are evolving in Second Life (SL). In this case, Wikitecture seems to focus more on emulating physical architecture components, but the people at Studio Wikitecture also tout their product as a way to do project management online. Joshua-Michele Ross has some things to say about the benefit of Wikitecture for bringing local knowledge into the design process, and he points out that Studio Wikitecture just received the Architecture for Humanity's Founders Award for their work on a health facility in Nepal. Others, like the people at Immersive Workspaces, see potential in collaborative online workspaces in SL, but for now I think most businesses and post-secondary institutions will find the ease and simplicity of WebEX and Elluminate more appealing for their day-to-day lives.

I still wonder if the learning curve for aclimatizing to these virtual workspaces will, in the end, outweigh the benefits of 3D collaborative spaces. It's great to see this work being applied to things like healthcare and NGO-work, and I hope that we can see more of this kind of real-world application of SL development.

This Wiki Tree is also kind of cool...