Will SL take over the world?

WHAT??? ... Take... over... um... the world... You mean to tell me that there is... cough cough... another world???...

That sound you hear is my false sense of security and misguided sentiment that SL IS the only world as it comes crashing down... hehe

SL will not take over the world. SL is already a part of how the world is evolving, though. Operating systems are irrelevant. Windows is irrelevant. Microsoft is irrelevant. The people who have a computer with a browser capable of using 95% of the content out there *far* outnumber the people who run Windows. That, to me, is indication enough that, to copy a phrase from Sun, "the network is the computer". If you need more to convince you of this, google for Tim O'Reilly's blog. He does a great job summarizing what's been so obvious all along to anyone with an open mind that's at all invested in the industry.

There have been a few others before SL - There, TSO, worlds.com - but they just haven't driven the technology in a direction that's actually feasible. Linden Labs won't be the only player, not by a long stretch, and their technology for implementing it won't be what everyone uses. I would not be surprised to see standards coming out of the IETF and/or the w3c that start to define how different systems interact in such a world. LL is at the forefront of it, driving it, and with the right minds involved in it. It's just a matter of time before other companies and organizations jump onboard.

The potential for a 3d immersive world is mind-boggling. The number of possibilities this opens up is astounding, and FAR transcends what we see on the web today. Virtual meetings are now not only possible, but actually more cost-effective and flexible than face-to-face meetings. It is far different than the typical meeting-in-a-chatroom that some have tried to push, and far more viable. With the immersive nature of it, it should be an easier sell even to the conservative anti-technologist decision-making suits. Of course, one cannot overlook the value of "face time", and that will never be replaced with something like this, but this certainly makes a lot more things possible than have been before. Customer in San Francisco, product development in Paris, marketing in Boston. It's difficult to arrange an impromptu meeting with those people, and the typical mechanism for that has been the conference call. That eliminates the possibility of a shared whiteboard, or catching body language or physical expressions that can often be so crucial in human interaction.

I'm pretty certain that Philip and the other minds at LL feel the same way, ultimately. Look at the recent initiative providing free SL access to college professors and their students.

Is Second Life ready to take over the world right now? Absolutely not. Are the minds behind Second Life on the right track? Damn straight they are. You can't stop evolution. They've identified the general direction of the evolution, and are in a very very good position to capitalize on it in so many ways, even help drive the direction of it. Whether or not *you* see it doesn't really matter It's going there, it's happening, and it cannot be stopped.

To start taking over (at least the 3D world), SL should first put out a huge marketing campeign to get a gazillion users in and boost revenues... then...

Buy There

Buy Activeworlds

Buy Croquet (http://www.opencroquet.org/),
Schmoozer/OpenCommunity (http://www.merl.com/projects/schmoozer/WWW/)
and all the other relatively dead VR technologies out there...

and incorporate all of the technology that they offer into SL (well the parts that make sense to incorporate anyway!)... get all those geniuses that worked on those projects involved in development! ... develop things like 3rd party extensions to LSL (perhaps through open sourcing some of the code?)... enabling externally created content from other packages to work in SL and stuff like that... basically get the entire 3D community involved in some way... show them the massive potential of such an easily scaleable system... etc etc etc.

Then start to work on the bigger companies like Adobe (Atmospheres), Autodesk, Truespace, ID Software, etc. and try to get them interested in collaborating on making something really really big out of it...

Today the 3D market, tomorrow the WORLD! muahahaaaa!!!

Now granted I would LOVE to see a 100% 3D internet technology platform to do work AND play in, but there will always be certain things that will always make more sense to do in a 2D window (like word processing). YES I know I am rambling! It's just gotta come out like that LOL

My 2.87 cents,

Arti

Edited to add: VERY well put Chris! You musta been typing that out at the same time as me LOL... Global use of VR as a meeting place is one of the best selling features of 3D technology... that and rapid prototyping of goods and buildings... I've done papers on just such things in my sordid past. In fact one of my old builds in Activeworlds was a VR conference center with actual shared whiteboards and places to stick stuff like images, webcams etc. up to facilitate discussions.

Agreeing with many other sentiments here... what is so exciting about SL is that there is likely an irreversible move toward this sort of immersion, and that if we do well as a company and people, we will cause it to happen somewhat faster than it otherwise would have. So of course I don't mean that SL is to take over the world in some vast corporate way (although I will vainly agree that is there were to be some central leader of these things folks could do much worse than LL/me), but instead that the changes we are seeing here are INEVITABLE, and what is fun is to see how quickly we can do make them happen globally.

*noding*

Yep Philip, doing well as a company and people is key - do your best to avoid slivery slippery-slopes - keeping your eyes on the prize!

Oh... that's not Sturgeon's Law. That's a modified later version of it. The original is as follows:

90% of everything is crud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law


Hey... I had a dream... a dream where Griefers -- troublemakers -- were not only dealt with on an account-basis and suspended accordingly by the parameters of what we know as The Big Six, but they had to spend time in a virtual prison sim as well and do chores like build prim license plates and contribute to VERTU projects, thus repaying their debt to the SL Community. And obviously, they had their teleport abilities taken away. And what was the name of this institution?

The Simshank Redemption

SL won't take over the world. Sorry.

Maybe the technology will give rise to a new generation of formal Internet communication.

Reason being will most likely be due to the current legal environment of modern societies. In this current stigma we're in, I'm betting that the most likely course of action will be for LL to hold onto the technologies as a proprietary piece of IP. They may try and develop the technology alongside communications providers in order to expand the geographical spread of SL or the technology surrounding it. If they succeed and it is well adopted by the Internet public, they might survive and have a monopoly on their hands.

While monopolies are lucrative they ultimate fail due to their lack of ability to change.

In order for SL to "take over the world" it has to become an open technology standard and not a proprietary system. Think 1.2 was a change? GOM?

Of course this is all conjecture. However, it wouldn't be hard to speculate that if LL wanted SL to "take over the world," in the open technology standard sense; it will shed it's seperatist culture which really truly means that SL will no longer be SL in the sense we know it now. It won't be a place like some metaverse. It won't have that sense of location, of culture, or "home."

Hmmm... maybe I should write a book about these conjectures.

Torley,

There was a thread some time back (can't seem to find it with the search feature) about a prison sim for social malcontents.

I still think it's a good idea. My suggestions specifically would put it on the level of the island prison from the movie "No Escape" (Ray Liotta). The main idea if found guilty of something but not bad enough to be banned, you'd have to serve time in the prison island. You don't get to take your inventory with you, and can only make use of what weapons you can find/scrounge. No building, no editing, no scripting. Only animal-like combat. If you die or log out, you drop whatever weapons you have, and when you re-log, you start over again with only your prison uniform and maybe a stick. Others can go to the island voluntarily, but minimum stays (1 week, say) are enforced.

I should hope Philip was being facetious and metaphoric. Otherwise, upon loss of power, or a disk crash, or a sim crash you'd die, lose all your possessions, and suddenly find yourself in some nearby country, respectively. Also, you'd have road signs like "New Jersey is closed due to Overpopulation".

Icon, based on the Town Hall and Philip's comments it seems like SL will eventualy become open source. Could be wrong on that, but it seemed like thats what he was getting at.

Frankly, I would think this would be an improvement. I would worry more about having to blink 30 times a second to get a decent framerate.

Even if 90% of things are crap, that 10% is a lot of content

Philip,

Inevitable

I've been debating this with people lately, and I struggle to put my finger on the reason why. It seems so obvious, and the best I can come up with is that it seems like a dream everyone wants.

Before Europe explored the world, there was Marco Polo describing the foreign lands.
Before there was Venice, Da Vinci imagined the aquaducts.
Before we had people on the moon, we had science fiction describing rocket rides.
Before we had democracy, we had leaders who imagined the participation of the common man in government.
Before we had the Internet, we had Gibson and Asimov and countless computer scientists who imagined the possibilities of sharing knowledge, and it seems the same is true with the Metaverse and Stephenson.

And Linden Lab and the people who fund and build and believe in it.

Why Linden Lab will be successful is simple - you folks have created an environment friendly to developers that gives them an instant large audience that really is available nowhere else. These are the people who do the dreaming, and who will be the supporters of the cause. Equally important, Linden Lab has time and time again listened and improved Second Life directly from suggestions from these same developers.

Out of this friendly environment came fun. Plain and simple, people want to come because there have been developers who used this environment and created a lot of fun things. We are seeing the emergence of opportunity. And money certanly bring in a different kind of motivation, one that will be the push to go global.

Believing in the Metaverse is the reason this is inevitable. Believing that Linden Lab is doing a knock-up job is the reason this may be a reality sooner.

That's why Second Life is not a game?
That's why 99% of people do not play video games?

The vast majority of people in the world don't even own a computer. Therefore, SL will never "take over the world". QED.

Haha... yeah... that's hilarious! It'd get some GTA fans involved, for sure. Second Life Behind Bars. Sounds like you'd really have to be a MacGyver to get outta there!

Come on, Eggy. Now that's unlike you.

Take an computerized country. TONS of people play video games. I'd say at least 30%. Besides, I was using that to illustrate that people prefer 3-D over 2-D, so your counter-argument really isn't valid.

And, the vast majority of people in the world indeed do not own a computer.

The same was true about America not TEN years ago. Give it time, kimosabi.

Besides, the Internet has already taken over the World. It's super influential in things like news sharing, political elections, and business. At the easiest example of how the Internet owns the world, I'd say the overwhelming majority of money in the world is represented by 1s and 0s and banks use that to transfer it to other places in the world.

Interesting comment from someone whom I believe may be part of the "Linux Revolution". I am dissapointed!

My thoughts,

It is not fair for a single 'game' to rule the world! Linden should make SL open source and give it away to the masses! SL should be totally free! No profiteering from SL! Monopolists! Fire all staff! Development and technical support will be provided by cheerful volunteers 24/7, forever and ever, amen.

Have we heard this somewhere else?

-tito

Game?? What game?? :: looks around ::

I have a lot of thoughts about this game, even though I've only been here a week. I've paid my $9.95 fee, and I find it fascinating that this is the only computer game I know of where you can earn back your fee, and get paid a few bucks, just for joining and socializing.

I was on the web in 1994 and 1995 before a lot of people caught onto it, I remember when Yahoo was a fairly small directory, but was going to be "great." And it is now.

I was also there when Microsoft gave out Internet Explorer t-shirts to the first how-many thousand people who downloaded, I believe Internet 2.0. I waited up at night, and over the next several months, and years, the web fell to Microsoft control. (I use Mozilla/Firefox as much as possible, and used Netscape 4 until Netscape 6/Mozilla came out).

Second Life will be "a killer app" but not "the killer app." To be a true killer app, it has to have the appeal that almost everyone will want to use it, and those who don't want to use it will be forced to use it. (My grandparents do mostly e-mail, but yes, they do finally use the web now and then to look up stuff, once they learned how.)

Second Life plays into a segment, a fairly large and growing segment, of the Internet population. It combines 3D gaming, with economics, with socialization and chat. It allows artists a place, programmers a place, and most anyone else a place, who is willing to look into the 3D realm. I hate 3D with a passion, and if you would have told me a month ago I'd be playing a 3D game 20 hours a week, I would have laughed at you and made you buy me a pizza ( http://dave.kristula.com/sponsorfood/ ) LOL

I came because of the economic potential. My understanding is that anyone willing to host events and hang out about two hours a night, can earn about $50 a month on a basic membership, more if you host events at your place to get dwell. For those of you who remember AllAdvantage 4 years ago, you would get paid about $15 a month to surf the web twenty hours. Now, you can get paid $50 a month to play a game 40 hours, about 10 hours a week. Feel free to correct me on my math.

For those who don't find it fun, regardless of their interest in entertainment vs. economics, they will almost all leave. So even the people profiting (I've had the opportunity to meet many) are going to be decent, enjoyable people. I don't think anyone can spend more than an hour a day here without having fun, and I think that's exactly what the Lindens want.

Back to "killer app." I was part of the "first web ad" revolution many of you speak of, I became involved in web advertising the first month it went "public" to normal folks like you and me. I've been doing that for eight years, with pays a living if you got in early enough (some people like Tom's Hardware, who I personally introduced to web advertising, are also making a retirement, which is not bad at all). Originally web advertising paid 1 cent per show (we call it $10 CPM) and now it pays about .05 cents a show (we call it $0.50 CPM). The reason was that people ignored and blocked ads, so they no longer became as effective. I think the opposite will be true of L$, I believe that it should stay stable or increase in value, so long as new creation takes place. If we have the creation we have now, and double members with no new creative input, I think it'll devalue rapidly, because there will be big winners, and fewer smaller winners. Feel free to correct me on that also.

I came to Second Life because it has the same potential as web advertising did when it started in 1995/1996. If you put in some hard work, you'll get a return. It'll take some tweaking. But this is one of the first places that introduces a true micropayment system, and allows you to start a business for $10 a month. Those two combined make it extremely powerful. That's what could make it a "killer app."

Posted at brother Eggy's "official" ROFLOL!



Will SL really take over the world? thread:


Nah - SL won't be taking over the world anytime soon.


Innovative start-up companies either remain as such and provide their products to a niche market - or they attract middle/end stage venture capitol and become more seasoned companies - still using training wheels.

If all goes well, they start to earning a profit (net/net) via their successful business plan, and then begin to return the investments of the venture capitol firms.

Once that happens, they get to swim in the business-ocean with all the other creatures - big lumbering whales, sleekly fast sharks, bottom feeders, sun fish, moon-rays - and then reality sets in.

Learn to swim successfully in the ocean, provide good customer service, stabilize the Gird and continue to do what you do best.

Oh, and forget conquering worlds.

Yes SL will eventually take over and James will be a predominate factor. <snicker>

hehe, personally I hear "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?"

hehe, just finished reading and someone beat me to it :/. Ah well.

I hope SL does take over! How else can I expand my burgeoning empire of endless marked-up tracts of land!

My word, auctions worldwide on millions of plots! I must take a brisk walk to contain my excitement!

*chortles while donning his wool coat, tapping the cane jauntily on the cobblestones!*

In 1910 - The vast majority of people in the world don't even own cars. Therefore, Oil Companies will never "take over the world". QED.

Yes true!

Wow, a reborn thread!

Well as one of the few people living in a "third world country" ... don't assume that the vast majority of the world not owning a computer will last for long.

Belize, where I live, is both poor and internet crazy. A lot of people own computers, some for business, many for email and games. Now the quality of that computer.. or the reliability of the infrastructure needed to connect... those are real issues.

We lost our internet connection (most of the Caribbean and part of S. America) for 5 days during December because some 'tard of a ship's captain (times 2) dragged their anchor over the fiber-optic cable that carries service from Miami in a giant ring. It took two idiots to take us down completely.. Five days later we were on satellite (the entire country) while the repairs were made.

And during hurricanes, the power is almost guaranteed to go out for awhile....

Don't underestimate how quickly computers are spreading.

Surreal