Should virtual worlds be termed immersive media? Robert Bloomfield closed Metanomics this week with a Connecting the Dots commentary which explores this question. Join us at today’s Community Forum for more discussion of this topic.

After spending two days at San Jose’s Engage! Expo, I come back with two terms stuck in my head: Integration and Immersive Media.

Let’s start with integration, which is happening on two separate tracks. The corporate giants like IBM and Intel, as well as some key enterprise adopters, are hard at work integrating virtual world technology with other enterprise technologies in a seamless package, allowing easy transition to and from not only other forms of collaborative tools like SharePoint, but also tying virtual world assets to enterprise databases. Over dinner on Thursday, Jennifer Swayze from Johnson and Johnson told me about her own dream: to have a meeting in a virtual space in which her team can manipulate visual human resource models of job descriptions, reporting lines and the like, and then simply export it to their enterprise database.

The other integration track is not technology but business processes. Slowly but surely the people who use virtual worlds are learning, as we are here at Metanomics, that virtual worlds are just one element of a complete model of virtual enterprise that ranges from face-to-face meetings to enterprise blogs to social networking, email and yes, even Twitter.

Now, what about this term immersive media? This isn’t a new term, and while I’m not sure whether I heard someone use it at the conference, it is pretty darn close to ThinkBalm’s term ‘immersive internet,’ and my neighbors at Ithaca College have already been proposing a minor degree in game design and immersive media. But mulling it over on the flight from San Jose, it suddenly became clear to me that this the term is far better than virtual worlds for those who are trying to understand the place of this new technology in enterprise.

I am not saying that we retire the term ‘virtual world,’ which describes environments like Second Life and World of Warcraft very well. But virtual worlds are foreign, different, unreal, and above all, separate. Now, separateness is one of the appeals of the technology: as Doug Thompson put it in his presentation at the Expo, a virtual space can provide an island of calm, a chance for far-flung employees tune out the constant barrage of email and regroup, both literally and figuratively, no matter where in the worlds they are. But the real promise of this new technology is that this island of calm is integrated seamlessly into an enterprise’s technology and business processes.

And here is where the term immersive media comes in. First, the term fits in with other terms that are now being widely accepted in the business community: An executive who has already signed off on a project involving new media and social media is already half way to signing off on immersive media. Second, the term identifies exactly the aspect of virtual worlds that is distinctive and powerful: immersion in a space, in creation and collaboration with colleagues, and perhaps even in a new identity. Sure, virtual worlds allow more than just immersion, but most of their other capabilities are shared by social media.

Finally, the term immersive media practically shouts integration and flexibility. Integration because these days the point of a medium is almost always to integrate it with other media. Flexibility because the term immersive media indicates what virtual world technology can become, rather than simply what virtual worlds are now.

No one wants yet another terminology war. But I don’t see one here. Go ahead, use the term ‘virtual world’ to refer to Second Life, World of Warcraft and even a not-quite-3D Metaplace. I know I will, because they are indeed virtual worlds. But when you are talking about what these technologies might offer to enterprises that already have instant messaging, email, desktop sharing and social networking, let’s get right to the point and state concisely what those enterprises are missing: an immersive medium.