The future of SL: Why not help make it happen!

Linden Lab DOES listen. They just listen to the whole story they have access to and not just a few vocal minorities.

They listen to the future that decided on when they first started.
They listen to the needs the see to get to that goal.
They listen to people who come up with SOLUTIONS as opposed to complaining without offering helpful information.

I for one have had several ideas implimented, at least in part. They have talked with many people about their thoughts, and have done several thngs based on outside work. Sure, they have done things that are not popular So does everyone. The fact is, it's their own call as what ideas to impliment.

Since they have already decided where they want to go, all we can do is help shape the way they get there. So fish or cut bait. Let's talk about what we can acheve...

A reasonable and civil and completely logical thread. I really did breathe a little sigh of relief through it. I have nothing to add, it's all been said, and I'm glad not everyone is so wildly alarmist.

Darn. We DID lose most of this thread.

And I don't have the posted information anymore.

Anyone remember the points I made. This senile old fool can remember half of what he said now.

Linden lab should have all copys of all that is said in any forums befor they got resetted maybe they would be kind enough to repost them.

also I've read almost everything that has been said here, Foolish for the name you choose I think you choose wrong, You should have choosen The Wise One or something simler, because you are Indeed not foolish but Yet Extreamly wise and have Inspired my heart and soul, You See I came to second life due to what I heard about it, I am 18 years old high school drop out (personal reasons) disabilitys and disorders I have, but I fight them, I've had a horriable life and I watned to start one in Second life, and maybe even make a few Usd so I could up my pcs ram and stuff from 512 so I could run it better, I've helped alot of new players out and such, I have also put my thoughts about sl to others, Every time I think of something I always feel like sitting down with a linden (in game) and speaking with them, but there always in a rush or always hurrying or busy its hard to catch them at good times, also I would like to state, I would like to Meet you in game sometime if possiable, You seem very wise, Maybe if its ok with you I'd like to learn from you and your extreame wisdom, if you'd be willing to take someone under your wing (useing under your wing as a basic term of accepting a assassitaes) *I probly have spelling errors and I am sorry for them, forgive them, spelling was never my specailtiy)

Sincelly: Tsu Goodliffe

What they should have done is add a fourth "Resident type"

*** "No Payment Info on File"
*** "Payment Info on File"
*** "Payment Info Used"
*** "Av is so secksie and flirty you would be an idiot to ban her from your sim for being unverified"

Cool stuff, Foolish. I've been thinking alike myself from a general standpoint. To keep it brief, I think metaverses will converge at some point making use of standards in much the same way as P2P (Point-to-Point) has happened (Music/File Sharing, etc). This will make it accessible worldwide, easily searchable and decentralized. Search and jack-in, so to speak.

Not sure what Linden Labs is up to but I sure do hope the best for it.

I'm here because SL is not the 3D internet, but a nice 3D sandbox with chat ability. If it was the 3D internet, I could text drive my next car and buy it and have it delivered... who sounds hollow now?

If you joined back in 03, this is what was on the minds of everyone in SL...

I'm glad others are just as enthused as I am by the prospects for Second Life as a future web platform.

If you're not already aware if it I would like to direct you to my post "Should Linden Lab Open Source Second Life? "

There is no need to reply to it there, but I would like to discuss some of the aspects of developing second life as a web platform that were discussed there...

My last post in that thread I felt said what I thought about SL as well as I could say it.

What a pity — one of Foolish's best-started threads ever, and half of it seems to have vanished, or so at least some of the more interesting articles have vanished. Ah well. Enough good stuff was posted here, and that's what ultimately counts!

I believe I'm your alt, Foolish — I do indeed think that you're right on almost everything of what you're saying. But even so, you are perhaps just a bit conservative, like people looking at a text-only WWW browser in 1993 and saying "will people REALLY buy anything on the Internet? Naaah... not really... and we're just around 300,000 people on the Internet anyway... no critical mass".

Believe me, I was laughed at when I went back and forth throughout my own country doing presentations on the future of the Internet in early 1995. People shaking heads. Patting me on the back in a condescending way and saying "You're a nice person, why don't you go back to pushing accounting applications or word precessing packages instead?". The arguments were exactly the same:

1. Nobody really "needs" a World-Wide Web. We can do catalogue shopping using a paper catalogue and a fax machine for placing orders. A paper catalogue has much higher quality than a GIF file on a black-on-grey page. Anyway, people don't shop that much using catalogues...
   
2. It's too complex to use! "Browsing", "clicking", "HTML", all those buzzwords you techies love. No one will ever understand how a simple form works. And you say people will one day pay their taxes through such a system? Laughable.
   
3. It consumes too much bandwidth. We have 14400 bps modems these days, a vast improvemen over the 9600 bps we had last decade. And you're saying that people will one day broadcast video using this lame technology?? And at what cost? Not everyone is able to pay US$5,000/month for a 64 Kbps international connection, you know...
   
4. Nobody has the power in their personal computers to run graphical browsers! They make your computer slow down to a crawl. Nobody will buy a US$5,000 high-end computer with 128 MB of RAM just to be able to view those cute animate GIFs! This is a technology just for geeks who can afford real computing power, for games and such things. The average office desktop computer barely manages to run Microsoft latest and greatest Windows 95 on their brand-new machines with 32 MB of RAM. Why should they launch a super-heavy application that will make their computers work like lame snails?
   
5. Oh, great, now we have a new way to get viruses into our computers. Sheesh. *disconnects modem from computer*
   
6. Images on the Web? For business? Let's face it, the only people wanting to view images on the Web are paedophiles and sex pervs. USENET has all those images (and movies!) for them anyway, why should they go with any other technology instead?
   

... and so on. You remember those times. Exercise for the reader: search & replace "WWW" with "SL", change the references to 2006 stats, and read the above text again. The visionaries will smirk; the rest will just say: "oh yes, that's what we said back then, but well, this is different, and well, you know, Mosaic sort of worked well, while SL is bug-ridden..."

[Short memories. Mosaic was bug-ridden as well. We simply didn't care so much back then. We had competitions on who wrote the smallest possible web server in Perl ]

Back to reality. When I do a presentation on SL these days, I don't start with the usual words "... in the future, people will be used to a 3D Web. Moore's law will give you faster and better computers in just a few years, affordable to everybody. Right now you can get a pretty decent ADSL2 16 Mbps connection throughout Europe for as little as €30/month; in ten years, we'll probably have 200 Mbps connections for the same price (and SL just needs a puny 1 Mbps anyway). In the future, the desktop will be 3D, not 2D, and we'll be more familiar with it, since it mimics the way we work in RL's 3D space. The 2D abstract metaphor of the 'desktop' will be obsolete; it will be as useful as a command-line, textual shell is useful these days: something to fall back when the pretty 2D graphics fail utterly..."

No. Actually, now I start in the following way: "The Matrix movies are set around a technology expected by 2020: photorealism, an impossibility to distinguish 'reality' from 'virtuality'. But technology doesn't just 'pop up' from nowhere; it usually grows from previous technology which gets better, faster, smaller, cheaper. Look at mobile phones; in 1986 they weighted 15 kg and costed €5000; today, they weight less than 0.1 kg and are given away for free. The Matrix has to start somewhere. Welcome to Second Life — the Matrix, version 0.1. And already with an economy sustaining 300,000 residents."

And for good measure, when I see all the laughing, nodding, and sighing, I throw in some punchlines like this: "In 1993 the first graphical Web browser was released. The Internet population was estimated to be around one million users; it doubled by the end of the same year; and today, in 2006, a billion users are estimated to be online, about 15% of the world population. Second Life will have a million users by the end of this year. What does that say about 2020?"

This usually makes some people think twice before dismissing the whole idea. When they mumble about "the Internet bubble also burst, not so long ago", and ask me why should a "sudden brave new technology" be "the next best thing" if so many others have failed, I just tell ask them back what were the key selling points for bringing corporations on the Web?

1. Universal access — a free browser (for most), runs on all platforms
   
2. Client runs rendering, server runs the application
   
3. Making money out of it is possible
   
4. The human touch: customers and companies meet online and get instant feedback from each other
   

All points that SL has at least since early 2004 to a degree. The latest changes — no setup fee, no complex validation system — just add to that.

Then: stressing that people will not only make money out of SL, they are doing it right now. 25% of the users of SL are content producers; of those, a few thousands make a living out of it. But 75% of the users have created something using SL in the past month (what does that mean compared to the number of Internet users who were able to have their own web page online before blogging systems appeared?).

In 1993, how many web designers made a living from doing web pages? (better: from integrating web-side interfaces to back-end servers). How many in 1995? That's the stage Second Life is at the moment. The difference: even non-IT professionals can use it and create content after a few days/weeks/months. Everyone knows 90% of what's needed to use SL in a week. (Note to the audience: pointing and clicking on a web page is not "using it"; how long did it take for you to understand how to retrieve any bit of information you need from the Web, so that it becomes a tool for your business? My guess: longer than a week, unless you got very good teachers; you were lucky: most of us had to learn how to do it on our own!)

That's the picture we have right now. Not a "bright new future where everybody will use 3D on their desktop". But a "bright new present" in which a few thousands — early adopters — are already participating.

Further speculation: when will Second Life become "the killer application" that drives the rush for 3D virtual worlds as the next paradigm shift on the Internet? I'd say, as early as late 2007/beginning of 2008.

What steps will that take?

1. Open API for better interfacing with external applications (work in progress — everything is moving to web services, and the programming on that has been going on for a long while now, just under the hood, with hints here and there). This is crucial — offloading most applications on external servers instead of lagging SL's sims with unnecessary code (LSL should be the "Javascript for the Metaverse" — a cool scripting language for visual effects only; the "number crunching" should be on external, dedicated servers. Right now you can almost do it with llHTTPRequest and XML/RPC, but LL has to deal with the many "throttling" limitations they have on both due to griefers)
   
2. Multiple grids. Expect an East Coast grid in late 2006, probably an UK grid in mid-2007. This will change LL's business model: from 3D web hosting providers, finally to become the Metaverse's InterNIC/Network Solutions. Instead of charging for hosting private sims, they will charge for interconnection fees (metaverse peering). At this stage they might also charge license fees at the beginning, but will drop that model quickly (the costs of tracking licenses can be much less cost-effective than just peering agreements)
   
3. "Second Life SDK" (later to become "Open Source Second Life": the ability to add your own tweaks and plug-ins both on the servers and the client, creating tailor-made "3D Apps", without sacrificing compatibility with the Grid. "Open Source Second Life" will be a natural evolution of that model.
   
4. Develop a Partnership programme and organise User Groups, like any other software house. The Resident Advisory Board (ie. what we call the Octocracy) is a first step towards that, but it only addresses residents, and LL needs to establish corporate partnerships. Lots of companies already offer their services exclusively using Second Life as a technology platform; it's time they are pulled into a real partnership programme!
   
5. Drop the "gamer mentality" and adopt a "corporate mentality". Get rid of concepts like "favouritism", "griefing", and "abusing the system". These are all part of the "wrong" mentality, and the sooner that is expunged out of LL's internal culture, things will start to follow the right track: corporations meet with partners, they deal with hackers/crackers using the law enforcement agencies, and they sell access to their services to the ones willing to pay for it. My personal problem with LL's corporate culture is that it has evolved out of the gamer mentality, and that shows too much — and makes them shy when having to respect the gamer mentality instead on thinking like a corporation. Although I have to admit that they are dealing with it far better in 2006 than they did in 2004; they're learning, but "old habits die hard"...
   

(reference for the above planned changes [shameless plug]: /13/78/107385/2.html#post1045872, also available on my blog)

Why should "the world" (ie. not LL) push for a demand for the "metaverse"? Mostly because Internet Service Providers are starving for broadband applications — they'll be the ones promoting it the most. The number of people who watch streaming movies or do videoconferencing is appallingly low compared to the rest — who use "broadband" mostly for peer-to-peer downloads, round the clock. We are still mostly watching web pages consuming few dozens of Kbps. ISPs will need to drive the demand for true broadband applications in order to push for more bandwidth for lower prices (why do you need 16 Mbps of bandwidth these days? Because you can download MP3 faster? But an ISP cannot promote such use... they need something else to promote it). This is not speculation; this is the result of some of my semi-formal meetings with ISP managers (I also tell them that they have to wait until the end of 2007 at least...)

What should LL do on the marketing side? I think that their first — and most welcome — steps were taken during this year: getting favourable PR on all media (they now get as much exposure on the media as World of Warcraft, with 20 times the number of users, and running a highly profitable operation — all users pay a monthly fee, and they just have a couple hundred servers to deal with); attracting the attention of the academic world (almost to the detriment of OpenCroquet, academia's favourite child, but which simply "isn't there yet"; and establishing a good and solid base of visionaries with an interest in continuing the investment in LL and SL.

The next step is getting business for their product. To my understanding of LL's internal structure, while they have a Marketing Department, they don't have a Sales Department (!). These should be the guys on the field, gathering high-profile customers to use LL's technology. If they wish residents to do the sales — nothing wrong with that, after all, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Intel, Siemens, etc. all do the same, they can't be all wrong! — establish a good and solid partnership programme, and tie it into the Marketing Team. I think that this should be in place at the moment the "OpenSL API" comes out — and then, make sure that all partners get the proper training (sure, do all the training in-world to cut down the costs — that's what SL is good at, isn't it?). Partners will get corporations to use SL as their "next-generation" delivery method for their applications — and LL should want a large base of partners with high-profile customers!

So it's all about the money, isn't it? Well, let's be honest: MySQL AB is a very successful operation, they give away their free and open sourced database software, and they run their company like that (a case study to follow!). But just take a look at the MySQL developers' forums to see how many millions of users are willing to participate on the development process and use MySQL on their own projects — for free

Personally, I hope to see LL to become first the Google of the metaverse (open standards, ease of use, great customer support, cool technology), and move towards becoming the MySQL of the metaverse (making big money out of an advanced free and open source platform). But we shall see!

I think you got it right Gwyn.

At this point, I can hope only on two things:

1) that things are not too far off on what Foolish (or myself) expect from SL and LL's guidance;
2) that at some point in time we're able to gently nudge LL if they're getting off the track

Well, the main push has to be for open standards.. Gonna have to see some development in that direction pretty soon ;0

If LL needs guidence ;0 I'll be beating on whoever I can find in order to get myself heard. I won't be gentle.

Foolish, Gywn, Baba.... everyone contributing to this discussion:

THANK YOU.
This is the best thread I have read in a long time. I rarely visit the forums, for self evident reasons, but I am SO glad I did tonight. I applaud your measured and well founded optimism, you guys, and I gladly hitch my wagon to yours. It's the one with all the costumery and musical instruments.

~Nethermind

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ok. Some points to bring up in a general way:

A 3D client would need several things to work properly:

- It would have to be as simple to use as is possible, while still allowing more complicated features such as building and scripting.
- It would need to be as open as possible, while still allowing security and identification for such things as inventory and groups.
- It would have to have to allow near total control of the server software in order to allow security minded businesses to be willing to use it. The software would also have to be easily installable on windows and linux servers to allow it to become mainstream. (they both have market shares, and some businesses prefer one to the other)

Last, stability has to be paramount n the final version (as if there ever was such a thing in ANY program). It must be able to function under fire, with poor network connectivity and server hicups not taking it offline easily.

One thought on that: Perhaps in the future, when bandwidth is even MORE plentiful, the clienta could transmit data to both the otehr clients and the server as well, and use a system to have a fallback in case the server glitches. Perhaps like distributes P2P filesharing, but with streaming data as well? A web of backup data?

I'm not sure the above could work, but I know that a couple years ago, SL would have been considered impossible by myself as well.

Foolish, this is a beautiful vision.
Hopefully when it comes to this new 3D net, SL will live on, as a pleasant social area, where in our old age we can all sit on our porches, look out at a beautiful sunset, and say to one another, we were here, on the leading edge, when it all happened.

Ok, Let me chime in here. First off, I have taken a step back from SL for now. I'm observing developments via the forums but haven't logged in other to sell off my land in two months. The reasons are many, and very relevant to this thread, thus my post.

This post may seem cynical on the surface, but it certainly is not. I have great hopes for the future of a 3d internet, believe me. I just don't see LL making smart decisions, so I unfortunately think we'll be talking about a competitor who will climb the mountain first. While LL will always be remebered affectionately by the techies as a pioneer (ala-Tandy, Commodore, Atari), without a radical shift in direction, LL's fate is sealed. I do hope the new open registration is an indicator of such a shift in LL's mindset.

As someone who has been on the "business end" of bleeding edge technologies for a long time, I think I can offer some perspective here that hasn't been represented yet in this thread. A few others have posted that have a vast amount more experience than I admittedly, but I've been places and done a few things that I think are particularly relevant to the discussion.

On the subject of new technologies, corporate america's adoption of such, and the real world economic impact and broad based usage of such technologies....

Obviously, the 2d internet has been huge, but let's admit, it's been a bit of a disappointment when compared to the grandious visions of the early adopters. The vast majority of businesses simply host a website out of some sort of cultural obligation, but the utility of their web presence is minimal, limited to "About Us" "Careers" and "Contacts" submenus.

Bill Gates wrote a great book called "Business at the Speed of Thought". It's basically his prediction for the future of web and PC based technology in the work place. While spot on in it's vision, it was ambitious and very few corporations have adopted it's precepts.

The minority of businesses that do use the web as a primary business tool not withstanding, the reality of the web's real impact was sorely realized in 99' and thus the tech bubble burst. It was quickly discovered that you can't sell cars, clothes, furniture or anything requiring a tactile pre-sale interaction via the web. Can 3D Change this? I don't believe so. In some very limited verticle markets you may see some added utility or new business plans built around a 3D interface, but it certainly won't be enough to drive SL onto a large percentage of the average user's home PC. Web browsers got to that point in large part because of the unrealized promise. Had mainstream corporate America been a bit more skeptical or had the crystal ball to know what HTML would actually mean to them and their business in terms of real impact, we might have seen a slower rate of adoption. Next time around, they may preserve that skepticism.

So as a marketing tool, it has huge promise in narrowly defined verticle markets (i.e. architecture, multimedia entertainment), but isn't going to help Amazon sell more books or Home depot sell more power tools.

The other "killer app" being tossed around is as a business collaboration/education/training tool. Here is where my direct experience is most relevant. I've been in the commercial A/V industry for over a decade, which includes the "next big thing" in business collaboration tools, VTC or video teleconferencing. VTC was supposed to bring on a revolution in the way businesses conduct training, collaborate with customers and partners and bring travel expenditures to a screaching halt. Afterall, post 911, why would any company put Joe Salesguy on a plane when he could video conference for a fraction of the cost and hassle?

In 2001 VTC was about a $200m industry, with projections of $2b by 2006, or right about now. Has it reached these projections? Not even close... Why? I think if you read on, you'll find some interesting comparisons to SL. Maybe these downfalls can be avoided, maybe not. VTC has suffered and without some serious attention to detail, SL will end up in the same boat.

1. Useability - If I had a nickel for everytime a decision maker told me he/she wasn't going to bother with VTC because it was too complicated, I'd be well, rich. It required too much infrastructure and maintenance.

Why? The industry married it's self too early to a poor standard - VTC manufacturers were so hyped to bring the idea to bear, that they unilaterally commited themselves to an antiquated technology and went about pitching it hardcore to the private and public sectors. The early adopters bought in and invested millions into packet-switched ISDN based tech. Huge mistake. The video quality was poor, making a connection was an excercise in patience, and the experienced soured so many decision makers to VTC, that the effects are still being felt today.

Later on, they decided to switch to an IP standard, but it was too late. The legacy tech had to be supported, thus developer's hands were tied and the tech failed to deliver as promised.

There are newer technologies available that reduce bandwidth requirements to 256k and deliver broadcast quality video in real time, full duplex over any IP based network. These technologies are dead in the water for now as a busines tool. Legacy support, the wrench in the works. As a medium for providing quality multimedia entertainment via the web, they are the wave of the future, but as a collaboration tool, they have little or no impact.

2. "You first" attitude. "Do my customers or vendors already use this technology? If so, what percentage of them?" Always a big question and huge objection to early adoption. Businesses tend to not invest unless they have a proven ROI.

3. The single biggest reason Netmeeting is an afterthought and VTC units collect dust in cabinets in corporate board rooms across america is simple... There is no adequate substitute for the feel of a strong warm handshake, the smell of perfume, catching the smirk out of the corner of your eye at the speaker's remark or the cocktail at the hotel bar that evening.

To sum up, I have reason to believe there are 3 major things LL and it's early adopters need to be concerned with if LL and SL are to match the wonderful Snow Ball/Matrix like vision of Mr. Frost...

1. Usability, useability, useability. A monkey should be able to use it and it should become a natural form of communication. If it's anymore complicated than your TV remote, it's going to be underutilized.

2. Flexibility in open standards - Be sure you're product is scaleable, and felixible enough to deal with the rapidly changing corporate and consumer markets. Avoid overcommitment to a set of standards that will require backwards thinking legacy driven development in the future.

3. Concentrating on relevant verticle markets and applications - Indentify areas where consumers and corporate entities NEED the technology. It's not enough to supplement lifestyles or marginally address minor pains, it has to be the cureall or provide capabilities previously impossible to achieve. As an option, it's a fun game, as a necessity, it's as important as food and air.

Of course, as always, I could be completely full of it and probably am..... =)

When I look at Second Life I myself don't see it as a tool that all businesses would even take advantage of. I doubt the typical online business would invest so much time and money into something that probably wouldn't present their product in a accessible and timely fashion. The Web as it has stood for quite some time does a damn good job of that now if you look some of the great sites out there now. Companies will just stick to what they have been using for some time now which are the generic web tools to create their content. People are already trained in masses, costs less likely (not being 3D immersed and the fact so many trained folks exist) and less time involved.

Some example questions to consider:

1. What do we as a company gain from using 3D to present our products/services?
   
2. Will our audience have to learn or even be willing to learn a 3D tool in order to review our products/services?
   
3. Should we continue providing a 3D platform for our products/services with the minority of customers who use it?
   
4. Could we achieve the same effect without using a tool such as Second Life for 3D with fewer costs using the resources we have now?
   

Some industries could make use of it of course but I believe there has to be a good enough reason to use it. For a while now, businesses have been wanting to "flash up" their sites" to make their products/services more presentable or just to stay in the game, so to speak. That's understand really but a 3D tool is one exception I see business more than likely not wanting to get their hands on. I would even bet to some of those business would look at it as "video game" and be turned off.

Personaly, I see individuals using the tool more so than the actual businesses do. Second Life is a great tool for minds alike who want to create personal visionaries, share their experimentations, create communities (forum like), selling digital content creations, etc.

Just my personal thoughts though. Who knows. It could be very well like the next Flash of the Web.

This would breed a whole new industry for selling digital content creation much like web page content creation has evolved. Yes, digital content creations exist now but I am speaking from the sense of a Second Life like platform (aka. 3D Web). An evolved alterverse industry within the real life industry. It's there now but not in the masses.

*goes off daydreaming again*

Second Life will not supplant the 2d web page. There is no reason why a Second Life client couldn't function as a normal web browser.. We've already got a limited implimentation right now.. Those whose business gains nothing from a 3d presence online will not use it...

Then again, if it's made easy enough by use of templates and easy to use tools.. why wouldn't they just slap some 2d representation of their product on a box and put it on their cookie cutter 3d shop?

1. If the audience is there in the future.. your company gains potential customers.
   
2. If the technology becomes mainstream, you don't have to worry about the learning curve. They already know how. Right now, things are in the early stages and yet, even the completly computer illiterate find their place in Second Life...
   
3. You seem to have this idea that all this will be happening in the next six months... Give it four to five more years.
   
4. ive years from now, the answer will be "NO"

You can bet your ass the really really BIG businesses cannot afford to dismiss any technology. Ask the Shell Oil Company why they took a tour of Second Life. I don't think it's because they want to branch into video games.

Where the people are, business follows ;0 There will be old markets that move to this new platform and new markets will emerge to take advantage of what is possible. You mention selling digital content right in your comment about businesses not using it. New busineses and products will be invented to facilitate that individual creation.


I really hope it's not like flash ;0 .....

pardon any oddness in spelling or grammar ;0 It's probably time for teh sleephs

<sarcasm on>

Desktop environments will never be used by businesses. Through FTP, telnet, and gopher, we will retrieve information from all computers on the Internet — quickly, in text-mode, and with very low bandwidth requirements. The text interface is easy to memorise and simple to follow; just a few keystrokes and you'll get all you need.

Web pages with graphics will be just "eye candy" and provide no real value. Customers don't want to pay for bandwidth while they download information and make business. They want things to be accessed quickly without a fuss. Gopher provides excellent serach & retrieve facilities that the disjointed, non-hierarchical WWW will never have. Nobody will ever use a WWW browser to access gopher databases, when a simple gopher application will do the same job much more efficiently.

Desktops with pretty graphics will never be used by the common computer user. The interface is too heavy on computers, requiring too much memory, specialised video cards, and lots of disk space to provide so-called "enhanced functionality" which is not immediately obvious for a vast majority of users; shell access provides all functionality, and a simple press-1-key-interface to access all menu options will be the standard on all modern computers — in just a few minutes, you'll be able to learn exactly what you need to work efficiently. Only very specialised applications (graphic designers, architecture and civil engineering, eventually games) will need and demand graphics; everything else will be used through better, faster, and easier-to-use text-based interfaces.

More and more people will use remote login systems (eg. telnet) to access applications remotely, instead of needing to download anything to their computers. People will never need more than 640 KBytes in their computers.

Businesses will never install graphical terminals in their offices' computers. They will be too cumbersome, expensive, and distracting, as well as hard to use and requiring specialised training for their employees. Instead, software developers will improve their text-based interfaces to make them far easier and faster to use in the office.
<sarcasm off>

Well, how wrong we all were back then

(and if you are old enough to remember what "gopher" was, when was the last time you accessed a gopher server? Apparently the Smithsonian Institution still uses it... how appropriate )

Very interesting, though I'm sure it was one of many opinions on the subject. Who knows which opinion will be quoted with sarcasm in ten years time?

I place my bet on Philip Rosedale as the Marc Andreessen of 2015

I might be wrong about Philip, although I wasn't wrong on Marc back in 1994... hehe. But it's so easy to make predictions after the fact!

I think these guys still use gopher

Have you ever doodled, almost sub-conciously, semi randomly drawing shapes, and then you suddenly realise it starts to resemble some rl object? You then feel compelled to draw a little less randomly to complete the picture. If it wasn't for the doodling, you probably wouldn't have drawn that picture. However, it's possibly not quite as fitting as if you had drawn that picture with the object in mind from the moment your pencil met paper. That's how I kinda think of SL.

That's all right ... I have the object firmly in mind

Hey, Baba. First, I would like to mention that the 2D web as it is now still has so much more potential and can still be highly mainstream for a long time to come.

Second, in regards to your reply on the business side. That audience (aka. potential customers) is a major factor. We will have to see how society evolves into the 3D webbish world. If many people begin exploring the 3D world enough then businesses might be more willing to give it a shot, like you noted. I still think there is this effectiveness factor when it comes to putting a product/service on a 3D Web. Depending on how we can use the 3D Web at the given time I believe will impact on those decisions. Indeed their are industries which can make great use of such a tool, no doubt.

If you want to put a 3D Web into the mainstream line then that is basically what it will be like, Flash - a snazzier option. Of course though a 3D Web is more of a tool/application than Flash is even though it can used for that as well. I hope it doesn't become that where businesses worthlessly attempts to try and be "mainstream" but if it happens, it happens. Their money anyways so oh well. I only mention Flash though because it to has a large creative and development use much like Second Life has.