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Futuresource Consulting, the specialist research and analysis house, and Rivers Run Red, creators of the Immersive Workspaces™ solution, are delighted to announce the joint development of Futuresource Campus, a real-time virtual research environment built on the world-leading Second Life Grid platform.
Futuresource Campus allows people to meet and do business within a rich 3D environment, harnessing the full potential of virtual worlds. Consisting of two key facilities, the Virtual Conference Centre and Real Time Research, visitors interact with one another, conduct meetings and carry out real-time, high quality, large-scale consumer research. This fully-immersive environment allows organisations to overcome many ecological, collaborative and communication issues facing them today.
Futuresource Campus: Virtual Conference Centre
With budgets tightening in the current economic climate, the Virtual Conference Centre on the Futuresource Campus ensures multi-national companies can continue to host their international meetings, without incurring the huge costs associated with travel, co-ordination and accommodation.
“Many companies may be under pressure to cancel some of their international strategy meetings,” says Tony Bicknell, Company Director at Futuresource. “Replacing them with audio conferences is just not the same, and multi-point videoconferencing can be logistically challenging, with the benefits of interaction severely reduced. However, there is another way; the Virtual Conference Centre is as close to meeting in real life as you’re going to get.”
Futuresource Campus: Real Time Research
Alongside the Virtual Conference Centre is Futuresource Campus Real Time Research, which provides a new and cost-effective way to conduct consumer market research, overcoming the many challenges that face the industry. Traditionally, focus groups and product feedback communities have taken up a significant portion of the product development lifecycle, and the costs associated with fieldwork may no longer be acceptable.
Real Time Research, a campus-like environment with focus group rooms, private feedback booths and R&D Labs, provides an engaging research environment for panelists, while the latest real-time techniques ensure accurate feedback and instantaneous monitoring of data changes. Regular feedback surveys, in-depth questionnaires, focus groups and product design testing can all be carried out within the Real Time Research environment.
“Futuresource Campus Real Time Research is yet another example of how industries are realising the real-world benefits of rich, immersive collaborative environments,” says Justin Bovington, CEO of Rivers Run Red. “We are excited at the prospect of our Immersive Workspaces solution making good on the promise of virtual worlds.”
Futuresource Campus brings together a large, diverse, international on-line community of motivated ‘expert’ decision-makers and influencers in an immersive, 3D environment, allowing organisations to conduct their international meetings and perform high quality market research quickly, effectively and at low cost.
Futuresource Consulting is a specialist research and knowledge-based consulting company, formed in June 2008 through a merger between Understanding & Solutions and Decision Tree Consulting (DTC). With more than 30 years' heritage, Futuresource provides its clients with expertise in consumer electronics, digital imaging, entertainment media, broadcast, optical manufacturing, storage media and IT.
Immersive Workspaces™ is a premium collaboration solution, enabling enterprises to communicate and collaborate in a rich, 3D environment. Developed exclusively for the Second Life Grid™ platform and private networks, Immersive Workspaces harnesses the potential of virtual worlds and 3D immersive environments to help solve ecological, collaboration and communication issues facing many organizations today.
Rivers Run Red is an immersive spaces™ company, developing content, applications and business solutions for the emerging 3D Web. As an industry-leading development company, instrumental in the evolution of the virtual worlds market, Rivers Run Red works with some of the world's largest companies in the extension of their digital strategies. Rivers Run Red is located in London and San Francisco.
Diary Date
Driving Digital Content, 4-5 June 2009, London, UK
Focusing on the business opportunities presented by the continued rise of digital content delivery.
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