Good call on VR1 🙂 I was one of the founding members, the company has since been renamed to Trimensions, and our scope of operations has expanded some since you wrote this.

Having done most of the development on the Amul builds personally, I feel I would be in a good position to answer some of the questions you have posed above. As a developer in the VW scene since 2005, I feel I would be able to give you a somewhat unique perspective on this issue as well.

Consider this: Amul were the first people to get in touch with us about SL builds. Which was quite a stunner in itself, as my limited experience of them did not give me any idea as to how forward-thinking they actually were.

They had approached us initially to see if we could simulate their entire milk production and distribution system, for all their users and members to get a good idea of the entire process. Which is where we’d actually originally suggested 8-10 islands, owing to the sheer size and complexity of their request. This would also have involved the creation of groups where members would join in roleplay in the distribution process mechanism using live demonstrations. Forward-thinking? You’d better believe it! Even my tech team (geeks all) were favourably impressed.

However, after some further analysis, we decided to create the Amul virtual parlours both as a proof-of-concept and to give the Amul team an idea of what a presence in SL would entail, on a smaller scale. It was Mr. Vyas, Chairman, who had originally suggested this after our first meeting. While the parlour doesn’t sell any real ice-cream, it does have a rotating display of every topical ad since 1989…the Amul Moppet totally makes her presence felt. There are small infomal meeting areas, as well as product displays and the actual parlours themselves. Live video feeds to amul.tv and streaming music still need to be added though…

The Moppet avatar is being worked on 🙂 as is the larger presence, though it may not necessarily be in Second Life. We are working currently on more of a Web3D approach using pluginless web-browser integrated technologies. However, there is a fair bit more analysis to be done given the scale of their operation, so it’ll be some time before we can announce the construction of the actual large-scale Amul presence. Thanks for your suggestions, they have definitely been noted.

In the meantime, demos of website-integrated virtual spaces, as well as links to the Amul virtual parlour and a couple of our other builds, are available on our website (http://trimensions.org), if you wish to explore further. Virtual branding and retailing still has a long way to go in this country, though I’d say Amul is pretty sorted out in this area…