Visions of the future

Kevin Mitnick. I looked him up. He is the person I thought he was.

He didn't get "kicked off" the internet for writing and posting thoughts that were critical of the internet.

coco

He got kicked off the int-er-net. Your contention was that NO ONE GETS KICKED OFF THE INTERNET. You were wrong. Why not admit it instead of trying to change your argument on the sly to avoid the simple reality that you were, in fact, wrong?

Actually though, your statement was "people cannot get kicked off the internet". That's what they were answering. The fact that someone could and did get kicked off. There wasn't the proviso that you just added in there in your original statement.

Thread is Dead, Zed.

Change is always unpopular. Every major structural or policy change in all of SL history has been met with similar doom and gloom. Things always seem to work out pretty well and prove (to me) that LL is staffed by people with a knack for seeing a bigger picture than the residents do at any given point in time. I always just take a wait and see attitude, and so far no major change has turned out to be worth the fuss it causes. Other people might feel differently

well I gotta start by saying I read snow crash, I liked snow crash but it is no a holy volume to be put on a pedestal and said "this is why the metaverse will be like." I mean Other authors have postualted about the net, most notably william gibson who coined the term cyberspace. So great, Neal Stephenson wrote a book and had a metaverse in it. But that doesn't mean we need a metaverse.

The web isn't something that a single compnay imposes on the world. Ther eis no beig central web hub with some company managing every transaction. The web is defined by the users. Something that has escaped LL in creating SL.

Frankly I can see no particular advantage of a 3-d over a 2d space. And if the intent is to push SL from a fancy playground to something practical, then it needs a hell of a lot of work. And it needs corporate sponsorship and participation. If you want a 3-d web, hell bring microspft on board, be fore gates decides its his vision and MS crushes LL like it did netscape.

Right now SL is a happy little closed society and closed economy that competes for entertainement dollars. I know that it is a unique expereince in the world of games-thats why I stay here, but i haven't lost my sense that SL, is ultimately a vehicle for fun. And yes Coco is right it is a very closed society, and yes, removing someone from the grid because they arbitrarily annoy a group that cannot seem to sort out the ignore button places a lot of power in the hands of a few moderators. It certainly sugggests a closed access, rather than an open access.

Personally I thinK SL contemplates working towards some day holding a major share of the MMPORG industry, by offereing a unique, specialized and flexible alternative to the typical MMPORG. I think SL could be in a position to make a nice inraod inot long term entertainment with user content and user community driving a limited metaverse. But ultimately the business of SL is SL and not what other compnaies will bring to the table.

Oddly enough its the three D nature of the SL expereince that I think will be its limiting factor. People will always see having an avi and building a house as oddly quirky and not something a RL person would do. What needs to happen is a major shift in the acceptance and perception of Video Games in Society. We are decades from that. Hell even amongst the current user base, which really is the most advanced and openen minded group in the game, Avi sex is ridiucled and perceived as silly. Many in the community don't even recognize the interpersonal relationships formed in game as "real."

If we don;t look at out selves as serious in the game, how can we ever look at SL as tool for business. What incentives are there? what advantages?

Does that work well as a SL pickup line? "Come on, baby, try the pretty sex balls with me. Do it for the metaverse!"

i can't believe my eyes! this thread has actually found it's way back to the original intent! lol..

Chip, you're quite right indeed. your view is akin to my own. there have been several times when changes were met with "doom and gloom", yet LL surprised us by making those decisions work. even when their decision weren't beneficial, they have historically heard our collective voices and adjusted to make us, their customers, happy.

as crazy as it sounds, they really do know what they're doing.. for the most part. and before anyone jumps to point it out.. i'm fully aware that there have been changes that weren't very popular that have remained the same, but that's where the business line becomes a little less blurred.

i thank you for your pointing it out.
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Jake, you're (almost) absolutely right!

the internet doen't have a central company controlling it, but originally it did. we commonly call it the government though. but after years of military use, it slowly evolved into the 'net we know today.

i remember when the internet wasn't solely considered the world wide web. nowadays the two are synonmous for most people, but "back in the day" it was quite different. i had a friend who was surfing the "www" before me, using Prodigy; wheras i was simply dialing up local BBSs via my 1200 baud modem!!! LOL..

what the internet was in it's early days with the military is what SL is now with LL. one day we could see it decentralized, maybe only partially, but i'm also not supposing that SL should simply become a 3D model of the web, i'm saying it's a natural evolution of digital communication.

SL is a unique creation, not one thing or another.. it is what it is, it's an alternate world/universe where everything from 'fun' content to business content exists side by side.. kind of like the web, huh? you can go pay your bills online or run a business.. then again, you can go play games or stream porn. kind of like SL, eh?

i don't think even Philip himself knows exactly what SL will become. he simply had a dream of a world where people can do whatever they want. the same thing i've been dreaming of since, at the very latest, the mid 90s. to a degree, it will become whatever we help it to become.. and that's "we" as in SLers and LL together.

for something to achieve success, it needs a firm foundation. what if the internet itself hadn't been developed by our government and was simply an open-source project that anyone could get their hands on right from the beginning? do you think it would still be the same? or perhaps it would be more like the open-source metaverse projects out there? never quite gelling, but available to a degree. i think we would have ended up with a complete mess, losing many people before they even came in.

same with SL.. what if LL had simply created the source and then said "hey everyone, look! come get yours and do whatever you want with it.. even figure out how to connect with others! yay! you could host it on a LAN, or throw it on the net.. anything you desire."
but with no central control over the project it would have ended up as a simple spattering of sims you could visit if you had whatever requirements each individual had decided to host theirs on and with.

so i agree, it needs some decentralization to evolve to that next level. as well as allowing much of it to become open-source. but it will only achieve that success due to the closed foundation we're (LL and SLers together) building now. SL is nowhere near mature, we're still taking baby steps and our future is both wide open and unknown.. but more than anything it's thrilling to imagine what SL will be in 5 years, in 10.. what about 15 - 20?
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and let's not forget ourselves. our "community" is unique as well. we're a collection of highly intelligent, creative and social people. even a year and a half after i started, i still sit back in wonderment at the lucidity of SLers. LL may have laid out the land, tools and rules.. but without us, it's just an empty barren landscape that would have stagnated into nothing before Beta ever ended.

if we would like to see a future where SL takes the top spot from the internet, then by all means.. let's do it. the amount SL has evolved since it went public is absolutely astounding! we have been given more tools and abilities with time, with which we've started bolstering this world with unexpected results.

yes, we can go script ourselves to have cyber-sex of all kinds.. but we can also make incredible leaps (Chinatown, for instance.. reflective puddles!!!) and bounds (fish with AI!!). we may not be the internet, we may not be a game.. but i never said or thought we were.

when someone asks me, "What is Second Life?" my reply can be summed up as, "it's an alternate world that exists on a digital plane where anything can happen.. and we can fly!"

Forget SL being a replacement for the www.
Make SL a replacement for the desktop.

I'd like to see my applications working in-world and publicly viewable.
Imagine using Painter(TM) on a virtual easel while several friends observe and comment.

Benefits:
3D environment allows greater viewing "surface" for windows.
3D environment provides geographical cues for memory and organization.
Shared Workspaces allow collaboration far exceeding telephone calls and emails.
Always-On shared-worskpaces allow for casual interactions similar to watercooler discussions.

References:

Desktop Replacements (3d and otherwise)
Sphere, Microsoft TaskGallery, 3DTop, Win3D, Rooms3D, Project Looking Glass, Litestep

Benefits of Always-on shared workspaces:
Barlow on "CasualSpace"
http://barlow.typepad.com/barlowfriendz/2003/12/entering_casual.html
Goode on "SideBySide" - sharing workspaces.
http://www.masternewmedia.org/2003/04/30/side_by_side.htm

Similar Commercial ventures:
http://www.tixeo.com/
http://www.i-maginer.fr/GB/

It did take a long time for the Internet to evolve from a centralized email network into what it is today. It didn't take nearly as long for the WWW to develop as an Internet-based service. It'll take even less time for a population already acclimated to a global network and 2D web to develop a 3D version of the latter.

Unfortunately that won't emanate from here. Here it's all about building a single community in a controlled world on a proprietary grid. Cybin's post makes me feel alone. Not as much as this though, it made me cry.

I quite agree, and am fairly certain that, as dictated by evolution, Second Life will die because it cannot adapt.

The early "military controlled" Internet, aka ARPANET, was built by BBN, run at various universities, completely open and hackable, and... Oh, here's the important part: WAS DESIGNED FROM THE GET GO TO BE DECENTRALIZED. ARPANET was funded and designed so that in the event of a nuclear war, information would be backed up and accessible all across the nation.

What the Internet was in its early days with the military, is most certainly NOT what SL is now with LL. What the Internet was in its early days with Compuserve, Delphi, and The Well, that's what SL is now with LL; it's an expensive, proprietary, and exclusive community for people with the funds to join in the game. It's not ARPANET...

Have you people never read Where Wizards Stay Up Late, or maybe Hackers by Steven Levy? I suggest you do. Read about what the people, the plan, the design, and the tools were like... None of them are even remotely similar to Second Life.

What delerium drives people to believe it is, I'll never know?