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I agree with your comment about failing technologies opening up doors for new technologies and ideas. You said, “Maybe SL is so uncool in a few years, but many 10 years down the road some concept is born because SL existed.”

The idea of the virtual world is probably ingrained in a lot of gamers’ minds, and it doesn’t really appeal too much to either, but in some circumstances it might. Who knows what becomes of it. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

I see it more as “the thought that counts”. I mean, the idea that this thing exists. Maybe SL is so uncool in a few years, but maybe 10 years down the road some concept is born because SL existed. It opened up a door in someone’s creative mind. I remember Computer Associates (former employer) made some software around 1990 that never really was sold. The point was – they showed us the future. It was a mainframe program that also used a laser disk reader and a pc. The help was on that system. If you had a problem on the traditional green screen monitor, you accessed this new system and you got a video about that particular area of the product (context-sensitive). You could also make bookmarks in the green screen area, something that really wasn’t possible then. They also demonstrated how the video could be localized. They demo’ed that with a woman speaking Valley-speak (you know, Valley Girls, California). I was in hysterics. The exciting thing was that this was science fiction come true. SL isn’t a Trekkie holodeck, or is it an alternative. That is the exciting bit and yes, we need a lot of people looking into that. I will just sit this one out however.

I do love Darren Barrenfoot’s Getalife that you link to. I first saw that over on Full Circle Online, one of my fav feeds: http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm. This is a great blog about online communities and online interaction. Highly recommended. A respected journalist friend of mine here in Denmark who is also into all this cutting-edge, Web 2.0 related stuff knows that blogger from some years back – another recommendation!

There is a very similar concept to Second Life – an objectiveless virtual world in which you meticulously create an avatar for purely social purposes. However, There is far less robust and confusing than SL. This fundamental difference made for something of a religious battle between the two games, akin to video game console vs. computer games debates that inconclusively rage on. Oddly, for once, I’m on the easily accessible side of the argument this time, rather than the complex and robust side.

There is economy-based, like SL, but you can sign up and play all you want for free without submitting any payment information. Perhaps it is thanks to its simplicity that people seem much chattier on There, and it is a far more inclusive, rather than elitist, environment. You don’t need to fiddle around for days before you can participate in casual or organized events in There.

I made some friends that I did some amazing things with on There. One guy was a keyboardist with whom I rented a high bandwidth Shoutcast streaming audio server. We did live performances, him on the keys and me on the DJ decks (not simultaneously) with an entire audience of virtual denizens jumping and dancing all around us. That was a heck of a rush. I kept in touch with another guy who I ended up meeting in person years later. It was indescribably odd seeing eachother in the flesh, yet we got along swimmingly and sans any first-meet jitters I’d had meeting people from IRC or other “faceless” media.

There’s engine has since been licensed by the US army and is used for collaborative team training. I don’t know the details but I’ve seen screenshots of desert locales featuring army, enemy, and civilian avatars.