Someone on the Ryanschultz.com Discord server alerted me to yet another platform which is intended for the corporate market, to support remote work teams, with the rather clever name of Remotely:
What sets Remotely apart from all the other remote workteam platforms out there is that all interactions take place with astronaut avatars, on alien planets!
Another thing that Remotely seems to have nailed down are the high number of integrations it has with other office software, which seems to be courtesy of a partnership with another company called Tandem.
Their website boasts an impressive 61 integrations with tools such as Microsoft 365, G Suite, and Slack, with a promise to soon include video chat in the mix:
This is not a platform which supports virtual reality; it’s a virtual world that you access and navigate via your flatscreen computer desktop (here’s an example image from their fairly extensive user documentation):
I should note that the idea of having business meetings in exotic locations is hardly new to Remotely (for example, Dream lets you hold meetings in a cave!). Frankly, this is sort of like holding team meetings in Second Life, only you have far, far fewer options for avatars to use and worlds to meet in. Aside from the high number of software integrations that Remotely currently offers, and the admittedly cute and appropriate name, there’s not much to set it apart from all the other YARTVRA platforms out there, in what is rapidly becoming an oversaturated market (for reference, here is my most recently-updated list of YARTVRA platforms).
In summary, I don’t think there’s enough to the outer space gimmick to reel in business users, many of whom may not see the need for such a product, even during a coronavirus pandemic when everybody is working from home. In my opinion, there are now way, waaay too many products chasing after potential corporate users, which means that those platforms whose companies can more effectively advertise themselves (and promote the features that set them apart from the competition) will prevail.
Another addition to my comprehensive list of social VR platforms and virtual worlds. If you want more information on Remotely, you can visit their website, or follow them on social media: Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Thank you to fyodorovvv for the heads up!
UPDATE June 13th, 2020: I mistaken tagged this blogpost with the tag YARTVRA, which of course it isn’t (it doesn’t support virtual reality), so I have removed the tag and renamed this blogpost accordingly.
