Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years?

Not at this rate Philip....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/01/second_life_to_dwarf_web_in_ten_years/

The Web had it's growing pains as well. Only time will Tell.

Angel.

lol for a little more balanced futurism involving SL (you have to register to read it):

https://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=18888&ch=infotech

Drift of article: Google Earth + Second Life = future of web

SL is already dead..

Yeah, I agree, I was posting it more as a joke due to the issues as of late. I'm certain that in 10 years the web will be much smaller if not non-existant. Either way you look at it, this IS the wave of the future, and Rosedale has envisioned it, and made it come true. Everyone in these forums constantly complain about issues, but that's because they're ahead of the curve. Down the road, once it's much more developed, things will be alot better. Just something you have to deal with if you want to be on the cutting edge

The Head of IBM once prophecised that the world Wide need for Computers would be a Total of Four units.
And i believe it was Bill Gates who once said 32Meg was sufficient computing power for any conceivable home computer application.

I don't even TRY to predict where Computing technology will be in Ten years. Honestly If THOSE two people weren't "Ahead of the curve" then i don't see how any Home Computer Enthusiasts (Notice i was polite enough NOT to call them Geeks?) could be any More Correct.

Angel.

I think the actual figure was 640K, which makes that prediction even more absurd.

A "unit" being what? Original PCs (or the one you have now running in "real" mode) is limited to 1 megabyte of memory. With dos, bios, and video memory allocated, that left 640k left for the user. Someone (a reporter I believe, but not sure) asked Gate's about this limitation, and his response was "No one will ever need more than 640k of memory". (51 times less than 32 meg! lol)

Unit being One of what the Average home owner has on his family room desk now, But bear in Mind he was discussing a computer the size of a double refrigerator, that had less computing power that a scientific pocket calculator (And was a damn sight slower as well). The sort of thing we have on our desks Now (and in our pockets as well if you think of the New phones) was science fiction of the most far fetched type Only 35 years ago.
And you are Correct about the Bill Gates Quote, I Only barely remembered the Numbers as being what We would consider now rediculously low.

Angel.

Virtual worlds are probably the wave of the future (unless something better comes along). I'm not one of the typical LL bashers but I really doubt that SL will be a part of it. They may have done the trailblazing but I'd gamble (if I could. lol) that someone soon will learn from them and provide another option that is more stable and offers better customer service. Probably will be several companies actually.

How certain am I of all this? I have no inside scoop or technical skills to back it up, just a really strong gut feeling its likely.



Angel, it's ok. Most computer geeks I know proudly refer to themselves as geeks, including my partner.

Bill says he never ever said that! =oO

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1997/01/1484

It's them damn reporters that keep repeating the myth



*Nods* I used to use Lycos and Infoseek for internet start pages. I had to go dig up a "history of the internet" piece to remember their names, today.

Yep, and I had Compuserve as my Internet service provider. They were the best thing out there IMO.

Compuserve! *snaps fingers* That's who I was trying to recall to use as an example, LOL.

I only remember them today for the GIF format issue.

Well when the Gif format was invented a lot of the people behind the world wide web weren't impressed as their vision of it was for serious scientific research. Ten years is a hell of a bold prediction in this industry.

The guy who created envisioned that in future everyone will live in a colorful anime world and have a ridiculously large head. At this very moment, 70,100 people think he's right, while a mere 36,300 place their bets on Philip. But even 70,100 concurrent users is a joke compared to the number of people who are currently using the good old internet.

MySpace, facebook etc., every 6 months there's another trend. The internet (and SL is part of the internet, not something new and separate) is pretty short-lived. SL had its 5 minutes in the spotlight, despite the medieval graphics engine. My guess is that growth will cease soon (already does, used to have more people online) and will lose at least 1/3 of the current population in the next years.
The hard core of the userbase will stay, as usual. Look at IRC: people stick to what they got used to. But only if the platform is reliable and doesn't change for the worse.

Of course, I need to correct my previous statement. Compuserve was NOT my internet provider. It was...uh....MY PARENTS! THAT'S IT! I, of course, could not possibly be old enough that I would remember it.

The internet will dwarf today's internet in 10 years.

Second Life dwarf the Internet?

haha

Isnt it like 0.0000000000000001% of the internet now? (i may have left out some zeroes)

Well, I think that some people, when discussing the future of the internet, use "SL" as a shorthand for "3D virtual environment where humanoid avatars can interact with the environment and each other for social purposes that may influence RL actiions".

Looked at this way, people are really saying that a form of 3D-media-centric search and collaboration will take over from google and email. Which does indeed seem likely to me.

I disagree.

However, I highly doubt it will ever "dwarf the web"

Yes, I took the use of "Second Life" to be meant in the same generic way one might say "scotch tape" to mean transparent cellophane tape. Even Philip referred in the article to "virtual worlds" in general, and not SL in particular. It was the Register headline that singled out SL as a specific subject. The article was clearly talking in much more general terms.

The way i understand it is second life is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.......

You mean toruses .. torusii ..

Ok, nevermind, you DID mean tubes.

Right. For about the eighth time in the scant nine months I've been involved.

Look, can the new continent include a region where all the gloom-and-doomers can go live miserably ever after so the rest of us can continue to be constructive?

sorry you lost me.

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Im not sure virtual worlds will dwarf the web either. Least not in 10 years.

Look at it this way weve printed books for over 400 years now, and they still are a big part of the way we spread information.

Weve had radio for 80 years now and its still a huge part of how we spread information.

Weve had TV for 50 ears now and its still a huge part of how we spread information.

The web has been 10 years and for most of that time it emulated those books, recently parts of it TV and radio.

I just dont see us abandoning all legacy familiarity within the lifetime of people who grew up with that.

And theres an efficeincy thing. A 3D world is not as efficent as a 2D webpage for a lot of things. Looks cooler sure, but not as simple.

Lots of the "cooler" websites with all the videos and flash everywhere have all their shopping ind checkout pages in good old normal 2d catalog format.

/me seconds that proposal