Using SL for land developers and RL communities

I think an interesting application of SL would be to prototype developments and allow for people in RL communities an opportunity to real time do walk throughs of the developments.

Basically, as a land developer, you'd hire one of the SIM developer companies and they would build out the sim according to your development proposal.

Town councils and community participants would be able to log on and do a walk through to check out the development in an immersive, virtual environment.

I think some white labelling will be needed to make this happen, as well as a certain degree of simplifying the interface. It will, I have to admit, also move away from the one-shard approach, but given the number of developments (100s of thousands) that are happening around the world at any given time, I could imagine 10s of thousands of these simulators to be used.

I think Google Earth is moving in this direction as well:

http://news.com.com/Google+Earth+zooms+in/2100-1032_3-6082960.html?tag=nefd.lede

It is a great use of SL.

Here are some links to folks already doing it in Queens, NY:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/start.html?pg=11


http://www.3pointd.com/20060425/the-juggernauts-of-second-life/

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=173601081

I know there are others, but I don't have the links handy.

Hiro's 3D wiki is more of a Web 2.0 meets land developer, a very exciting and far out idea in itself, but not really what I mean. Don't get me wrong - I think this is the way to do it, and it certainly gets *me* jazzed - but it is a bit ahead of its time.

That being said, it would be interesting to discuss the class of applications that maps from the SecondLife into the FirstLife. Life is good, after all, when it imitates art!