The other day I was having lunch with a few friends of mine and stumbled upon an interesting conversation. One person had mentioned that every Thursday night he gets together with several other VP and Directory level software engineering managers to play World of Warcraft. Amazingly, he also says that he has connected with other software “power players” through World of Warcraft. Really? Is World of Warcraft becoming the next business networking tool like golf?

For those of you that don’t know, World of Warcraft is massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It is considered one of the most successful MMORPG’s ever created. There are over 8 million users world wide and some of them are using it as a networking tool. Can you imagine being in a business dinner and saying, “I have a Level 59 Undead Warlock on the Doomhammer server. Let’s get together Saturday, we can kill a few humans and I’ll tell you about my idea over TeamSpeak.” Crazy. I would still prefer to chase after that little white ball rather than kill humans together online.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a 51 Orc Hunter on Doomhammer which I play from time to time.

/laugh