Phone Calls From Second Life

This past week saw two brands of telephony providers announcing services to provide phonecalls from the virtual world of Second Life. The technology is, in fact, an interface to a call handling service that would connect two existing phones in the real world through a long-distance service provider. I contacted them both for details.

Big-Bit sent out a press release about a partnership with Wusic, an anonymous calling service that uses a web interface. "This service will enable users in virtual properties to make phone calls from within virtual worlds like Second Life," the press release states, although not many other details are available online as the beta hasn't yet begun. Big-Bit's Andrew Peters made himself available for interview and cleared up the details. His Facebook profile contained a Wusic logo that, when I clicked it, gave me a simple interface to type in my phone number. My phone rang, then when I picked up his phone rang in Singapore, and the long distance bill went to his Wusic account. Neither one of us ever saw each other's phone number.

The idea is to extend this concept into Second Life, where a similar interface would be used with our existing phone lines. Their rates are pretty reasonable (a few cents a minute in most cases), with the plan being to use advertising revenue to offset the costs as much as possible.

Vodafone took the approach of advertising directly to Second Life residents through The Second Life Herald. At first I thought they were providing a VOIP service (the website's "How does it work?" page is all about deciphering how the HUD works), but they just got back to me in email to clear everything up: "This is not a VOIP project - it's about reaching out to customers on Second Life and offering them a different experience."

After a little more research I discovered that this works similarly to the Big-Bit project: you dial out from Second Life, your home phone rings, you answer it, and then the other end is connected. Anyone you called can call you back, but because of the specific way they have this set up you can't make yourself available for a call from anyone you haven't already called yourself. (The exception being that users of Vodaphone's HUD can list themselves in a directory.) It's in beta right now and works free of charge until the end of November, at which point "all messages and voice calls initiated inside Second Life may be charged up to 300 L$ per minute/message." Also, all incoming calls will be paying long distance charges to Germany through their current providers.

Things have changed in the long-distance race over the last few years. Costs have come way down and the old game of price comparisons is reserved only for those looking at over fifty hours a week. Most of the marketing now it's about service and ease of use. The winner in virtual worlds will be the one who can provide the best interface for their service. Once these two companies are out of beta, we'll see very quickly who has the most practical approach.

Even when that is sorted out, is this a relevant way to reach an audience? Ultimately they're selling two things: anonymity and cheap long distance. From a practical perspective, however, is this enabling anyone to do more from Second Life than they could without logging in? Will people want to use in-world phone systems and begin to positively associate with the brand, or will this be yet another ignored gimmick?