I've heard many times about the Virtual Observatory, but what really is VO? Is it just for IT people?, for data centres?, for astronomers?, for everybody? Who is behind VO? Is the Virtual Observatory sustainable in the medium-term? Was it just a nice idea or is it really having an impact on the way astronomers make science with archive data?
In this talk I'll try to answer all these questions by describing the Spanish Virtual Observatory, an initiative that began in 2004 with the aim of coordinating at national level the VO-related activities in four different fields.
Special focus will be given to usage examples of VO tools for real VO-science projects.