Man, just when you'd thought you'd heard the last of Second Life. The heady days of virtual world speculation seem, for now, to be behind us. There seem to be no more fevered discussions about how such and such brand can build a presence in Second life. However, even as the virtual BBH offices and the virtual American Apparel showroom sit vacant and ignored, I don't think it's the end for virtual citizens.
I read this article from Reuters about Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, working with IBM to create cross platform compatibility for virtual worlds and it reminded me of what I thought was cool about Second Life when I first saw it (though, like everyone else, I quickly got bored of awkwardly flying about having content-less conversations with busty anime characters who seemed compelled to dance at every opportunity). It reminded me of what I thought then; Second Life is a fad, but it will be the testing ground for a direction that user interfaces will inevitably move.
This article is interesting, but, as I said, I think this is just the beginning of a slow creep of virtual space interaction that will eventually become commonplace. With, Google releasing Sketchup, allowing users to turn Google Earth 3D, and the idea of the geoweb takes root I see communications network following two distinct but related trajectories that will soon meet: 1. networks with geographical references in the real world, 2. networks with their own virtual geography.
I read this article from Reuters about Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, working with IBM to create cross platform compatibility for virtual worlds and it reminded me of what I thought was cool about Second Life when I first saw it (though, like everyone else, I quickly got bored of awkwardly flying about having content-less conversations with busty anime characters who seemed compelled to dance at every opportunity). It reminded me of what I thought then; Second Life is a fad, but it will be the testing ground for a direction that user interfaces will inevitably move.
This article is interesting, but, as I said, I think this is just the beginning of a slow creep of virtual space interaction that will eventually become commonplace. With, Google releasing Sketchup, allowing users to turn Google Earth 3D, and the idea of the geoweb takes root I see communications network following two distinct but related trajectories that will soon meet: 1. networks with geographical references in the real world, 2. networks with their own virtual geography.
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