This time last year and next years predictions

My predictions for 2009:

1) New client interface designed by Fischer Price as 'My First Interface'.
2) Malls disappear as everyone just has a 1 prim XLStreets box.
3) Lot's more vacant land on the mainland. Prices crash.
4) The remaining corporations wise up and quit SL in favour of their own Open Sims.
5) LL jack up the prices again to prop up their flagging profit.
6) LL add incentive to Premium members but numbers continue to decline.
7) Torley or one of the other high profile Lindens calls it a day.
Total fiasco regarding the teen/main grid consolidation.
9) LL make more bad decisions (I know, more of a sure thing than a prediction
10) New shineys pushing the minimum hardware spec higher.
11) The end of traffic counters as an attempt to control the bot problem.

I predict that pie will remain popular on the forums.

lol. It's no good to you in your business, but the land might be

Here's what i think...

Early Spring - The VPN is finally totally dropped and SL along with Linden Labs are running off of their own datacenters and mainline connections which they own.

Late Spring/Summer - The full effects of the current credit crisis finally impacts on Linden Labs. With interest rate decreases in the UK and US not being felt for another 15 months in real time the impact of the closures and bankruptcies of large companies, people being layed off and the MAJOR impact of the credit crunch (loss of sales during christmas) wont really be felt until mid way through summer.

Linden Labs quietly announces the closure of the UK office and soon after several well known lindens announce their retirement from Linden Labs.

Summer - Mark Kingdon (aka - The Business BUTCHER...aka - M Linden) announces that he has hired MORE executives...aka more "yes men" to do his bidding.

Late Summer - Concurrency goes over the 100,000 mark, yeah folks, when its summer up here in the northern hemisphere, its the deep of winter in the southern hemisphere. The credit crunch is now taking its full impact, people in the northern hemisphere dont have the cash to go on holiday so they stay home, watch TV or play on SL. People in the southern hemisphere are in the middle fo winter.

Early Autumn - Microsoft announce they are developing a new 3D Virtual World which will tie in with Windows Live and XBOX Live.

Late Autumn - Google or Activision - bliZZard will start making tentative approaches to Linden Labs on the possible buyout of Second Life while leaceing the Grid Technology from Linden Labs.

Winter - Google or Activision - bliZZard take over the running and economy of Second Life while leaseing the grid tech off of Linden Labs. LL sack most of their techical staff or move them over to the new owners of Second Life. Linden Labs becomes a PLC and floats itself on the market. The new owner of Second Life immediately announces work has started on a brand new built from the ground up client viewer and the entire mainland goes under the scrutiny of the new owners.

Late Winter - Mature and PG ratings are more strictly enforced, by this time the teen grid will have been forcefully merged into the main grid as Linden Labs final act before selling off Second Life to a new owner. The new owners of SL invite companies like AMD, Intel, Dell and other tech companies to advertise via "Governor Linden" owned billboards which have started to spring up along the roads of the mainland. The new company which owns SL bumps the premium fee up to $15 a month inline with most other MMO games, with the $15 a month you get all the stuff you have now but your 512 parcel that was free becomes a 4096 parcel on 4 new mainland continents that have been opened up.

December 2009 - Mark Kingdon steps down as C.E.O...and he runs off to butcher ANOTHER company...


PS: This can either be a prediction for 2009 or 2010...but makr my word, within the next 2 years SL will be sold...

This is the best one so far.

I predicted we'd all be driving flying cars. Didn't happen.

That's my prediction for the next year to come.

BTW, I did get my jet pack, thanks to Winter.

I predict more unclothed forum avatars.

- flexi sculpties
- memory limit for scripts (similar memory limit as current parcel primitive limits for parcel and avatar have their own constant memory script memory limit for their attachments)
- different style avatar baking - maybe even possibility to have more clothing layers.
- 95k+ concurrency users
- mature and PG content is more actively forced
- open sim servers mature more and slowly starting to gain real support, which will slow down SL growth.
- mainland will get more of themed "prebuild" SIMs
- XStreets ads are integrated to SL's search. You can buy products directly from search.
- C# language for scripters

Really? I know it's possible, but could LL actually decide to do this?

Things would change considerably for the better if we had an actual programming language available (even if it's C#).

It'd be a huge leap of trust for the bytecode verifier.

Hmm, why is that? Aren't scripts now compiled on the servers?

I suppose if C# is restricted to calling the same libraries that LSL currently does, it could be OK, but I'd still be wary of whacking the scripting engine with an infinite loop in C# code. I've tried to google Babbage's comments on that, but my Google-fu is failing me, and I don't want to depend on my memory...

The fun an excitement of the LSL library calls are the build in pauses...

for(;;);?

Xstreet ATM's will be discontinued and the money will just go to or from your L$ balance.

A media story about bots and hucksterism. Some creepy pictures and amusing attempts at conversation on TV.

LL already have prototype of C# script engine in their labs. However currently missing component is metadata verifier that is developed by mono project (http://mono-project.com/) as part of their Moonlight engine. Meta data verifier should come out next month.

LSL-mono is already compiled to assemblies and run by same mono virtual machine that would be used by C# scripts. Only thing that it is needed is checking that those C# compiled assemblies don't contain any references outside script sandbox. If Mono's metadata verifier is suitable to this job - then we could have C# scripts by the end of this year - if not - then I don't think that LL is going to write their own verifier.

Now this one's a trick. LL already announced that this is going to happen, which means it will take two or three years

Funnily enough I was only today thinking to myself, I wonder what the next BIG thing will be in SL?

I don't mean a few tweaks, some bug fixes, new avatar clothing positions, higher building....

I mean a "IN YOUR FACE" difference.

Perhaps shadows will the the 1st thing to be instantly noticable (when we say shadows are we also saying Prims will block light?)

The Transparancy order (openGL) bug it a constant annoyance, but again, it's not a BIGGIE.

I know when I 1st joined SL (mid last year) I was impressed by the water, sun etc etc (as it has just had the update for this months beforehand)

The thing that struck me the most (as being terrible) and still does, is the hopeless ability for coders to produce anything animated of much worth.

Even the best of the best, (tigers/dog etc) as expensive pets, are VERY good given the tools to hand, but we're still in caveman mode it seems.

Hey, most things are birds flying in a cirlce on a rotating invisilbe stick !!!

It would be so wonderful is LL gave programmers the ability to actually make something as realistic as the quality that can be put into a Avatar and give it life (so to speak)

The mainland will look like the RL mainland. Boring, conformist and cluttered with corporate advertising.. Whoever SL's owner is will take advantage of it and jack up private sim prices and any other fees for access to "Adult Content".

It's not just an OpenGL bug. It got massively worse with Windlight.

I thought that he had left SL to make bar stools for OpenSim.

I understand "Shadowdraft" is going to give us shadows.

But does that mean that Prims will finally block light?

So if you are inside your house with no windows and no lights on it will be dark, as it should be?

I think that due to the stresses of change (economic and cultural), SL's population will grow fast and cause overloads.

People will seek escape and you can be rich in SL on very little money, nice if you are tightening your belt in RL...as well if your dreams are limited in RL, they are still available in SL.

LL will want to merge the teen grid with the adult grid for the sake of educators for one thing so there will be some form of making sure that youngsters don't see anything that of course they will spend a lot of their time trying to see.

So either Age Verification (and ID verification) will increase especially with the news of the frauds on MySpace and FaceBook.

At the same time there will be some attempt to keep artistic freedom so I agree with Brenda...Mainland will become more vanilla and Estates will be where freedom still abides.

I think LL will spend most of its time positioning itself for mainstreaming rather than giving us eye candy. I think that it is pretty clear that massive enrollment depends on not offending the sensibilities of the still culturally conservative mainstream.

There is a possibility of specialty viewers for people who need to produce hi end items (programming, animation) which will still operate properly in the regular viewers but can only be made by using the special viewers. With all the unemployment, people with really powerful skill sets will be free to play and produce in SL and that could be very interesting indeed.

I think OpenSpace will attract attention for the same reason that SL did at first...the things that SL banned will have moved there and Open Space will face the same push back. The people who run Open Space will burn out and either try to merge back or give it up.

Various governments will begin to take a more serious look at the money that flows thru SL and try to regularize that with RL economy.

Along with the "I caught my spouse having an affair at the Bondage Ranch" articles, there will also be more media attention to the meaning of virtual vs. "real" interaction and identity...more academics will choose it as a thesis.

Yes, it does.