Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years?

To this was referred

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes

It hitted the news big time over here in The Netherlands.... It has been on many news sites here .

Morwen

Yeah, I bet he denies that the motto at Microsoft used to be "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run too".

It has nothing to do with gloom and doom when someone speculates that SL's heydays are over. That's the way of social online places, websites, MMORPGs etc. Moove, There, SL... it's all been done before, will be done again by someone else and each place will only appeal to a small part of the internet population.

For the usual e-commerce à la Amazon, a 2D website is perfect (unless our species will lose the ability to read in the near future). Why would any RL business want to force their customers to walk the streets of laggy virtual towns with little 3D figures, getting harrassed by pixel beggars and hit on by polygon hookers, in order to enter a slowly loading virtual shop that needs to be staffed with service personnel and can only hold 50 people at a time?
A 2D internet shop allows me to find and purchase whatever I need with just three mouseclicks and serves thousands of customers at once. No need to install a client software, to walk through tutorials and crowded welcome areas, to stand in line and wait, or to socially interact with strangers.

Business meetings? IBM could have done the same in Ultima Online 10 years ago. Or on IRC, 18 years ago. If it wasn't for the media coverage, a webcam conference would be the sensible way to go, without worrying about chat spies, bugs, grid crashes or griefer attacks.

Leaves the social networking aspects (can't compete with easy-to-use websites like MySpace, Facebook etc.) and the adult game features (which is not the route LL wants to take, but the only reason it became slightly popular).
If LL would concentrate on what they have and can currently sell, which is a socializing place plus environment for creative hobbyists plus adult roleplaying game, they could secure the current revenue for the next 5-10 years, until something better comes along (always happens sooner or later). But trying to turn this There- and Moove-like mix into the future internet platform is megalomaniac and only leads to technical complications that drive away the current customer base.

No one can tell what the internet of the future will look like, but it's a safe bet that it will be most diverse. Not one new standard, but lots of online places and communities, 2D as well as 3D. Not one metaverse, but lots of cyberspaces, even more short-lived than today. Specialization is the way to go imho; a one-size-fits-the-world attempt is futile.

I beg to differ.. it's simply a further extention of computer networking. On the physical level you have all the networking hardware, the hardware comumincates with each other using the data link layer. Information packets are exchanged using TCP/IP. HTTP sit's on top of that. The system developed for SL is simply another higher level protocol that "sits" on the TCP/IP stack of functions. One can even go so far as to assume it sits atop HTTP since it makes the assumtion that it's there... and THAT is what is going to drive the internet in the future. We can sit here and speculate how long it will take, but I think it will be sooner rather than later. New hardware is coming out that's more and more powerful all the time, and 3D is the wave of the future. Heck I remember when computers were not powerful enough to mix text and graphics. Now, that's totally assumed and expected. Already it's impossible to purchase a computer without 3D support. Soon, the low end systems will have the power of today's high end systems. And that will only take a few years to happen.

In the future, closed systems will take care of all of that. Heck, even right now, one can purchase a sim (or set of sims) and close it off to the whole of SL. A private meeting can easily be held right now without having to worry about the things you mention. Also, for all we know, sims exist that dont even appear on the map. I'd wager all my L's that they DO exist. Oh wait, scratch that, cant bet.

I think you got it spot on. It's horses for courses, and a 3D metaverse is a horse that suits a few quite restricted courses. There are better ways of doing lots of information/communication stuff. I think the fan-bois are just getting a little carried away.

In the same brealth, Gates also said computers wil be cheaper and cheaper. TO the point computers will be given away with the software. Because parts will get cheaper and cheaper. Software is what going to drive the future and beyond. Hardware will coexist because it needs to run on something right heheheh.

Hence I highly doubt Sl will ever reach levels Philip Linden dreamed. For one because those that got left behind that helped build the sl world as it stands today. How many people has LLABS pissed off, hurt,and other assorted BS that cause many that helped build the game to either leave or just stop caring and or forced out of the helpers roles? What I thought SL is not even close to what i thought it would be. Which today is just a nightmare. Now With outlandish Lindens flashing their power screwing of people that in their normal playing day for some odd reasons hated them. Or are some sort of unknowing and totally mentally off the wall person, wanting power. The structing for the lindens these days is so so untrusting. They say there is structure inthe Lindens? But is there? The world is much more confusing and unknowing then ever before.

A few thoughts for someone that use to truthy love the game.

Usagi

I think you missed the joke behind the remark of tubes (see the reference I posted before).

Morwen.

I get the joke!!!

It's a series of Tubes!!!

Yes... most common answer nowadays to the question about what the Internet is: It's a series of Tubes!!!

Right after Senator Ted Stevens made this remark, the person who maintians my computer slapped that answer grinning in my face. Over then it was also on many Dutch news sites.... and not in the most complimentarily way .


Morwen.

Probably in 10 years technology will have moved on so that SL- type worlds are truly photo-realistic with proper shadows and lighting - from what I've seen Windlight (when it's sorted) will point SL further in that direction.

This will make these virtual worlds more attractive to both those who want a fantasy extra existence based in-world and those who want to extend their RL persona / company / product into a virtual world. However I can see that these two groups might separate into different worlds - with people like SL offering two worlds to suit each client group.

But for me the big question over the future of virtual worlds and the internet in general is whether we will still have the freedom that we do now. Already certain things have been stopped in SL and national laws generally extend to include web content.

If the net moves from the general assumption that you can do what you like as long as it isn't illegal, to a position where the net controllers say 'this is a list of the things you ARE allowed to do, anything else and you'll get banned' and the freedoms will be gone. If the internet comes to be seen as generally harmful to society rarther than beneficial, then it will come under tighter control.

Incidenally, I tried out another 'world' yesterday, one that is actually called 'Worlds'. It was very basic to the extent that it made 'There' look sophisticated LOL. The avatars in 'Worlds' aren't even animated, they just slide along the ground in a standing position. The graphics were poor apart from the distant backdrop and what was heartening to me was that Worlds suffered from........lag!!!! Woot!

I agree with your conclusion, but I stand by my "doom-and-gloom" comment. Since I've been in SL, every policy change and every period of poor performance as we've just had inevitably brings out a certain contingent who wail, "this is the end of SL!" "SL is dead!" "R.I.P. SL!" Woe! Repent! etc etc.

It is predictable as clockwork. As I said in my first post, I've seen it several times already and I've only been around nine months. I understand from people who have been here longer that it is not a new phenomenon.

I will say that Second Life per se may or may not survive 10 years, but the kind of 3-D technology it is pioneering and popularizing certainly will. For now, though, Second Life is nowhere close to dead, and it just grates on my nerves that some people seem to be determined to write its obituary.

I have to agree on multiple points here. I have been in sl now for a year, back when i joined the logins usually stood around the 7-8k mark, there was some lag yeah, some stability issues but generally it was "nice" you know, i think everyone around then will remember that it did at least work.

We can also say that sl has had severe growing pains, from 7k to 43k sometimes higher logged in at once, the system is obviously better than it was to be even operating with as much uptime as it does so improvements have been made in the architecture.

That said it is now becoming painfully obvious whatever architecture this thing is running on is woefully inadequate for the task ahead. What would happen if another 43k surge through some tapped market flooded into sl?. It would more or less collapse.

I am a complete fan of second life, the potential of the concept and am confident in a 3d future for the internet, however i really dont think second life operated by linden labs will be the chief runner in the future. Maybe if/when the server software is released either open source or on licence it will truly help steer the internet into a 3d future, helping pave the way for a true netwide 3d platform, but as it stands in its current form, sl will follow the path of a constant dedicated fanbase with the general net population tearing off for bigger and better things, i think it is already starting to happen.

Second life will always be the sum of its technical parts, in the end it is an application, and even with its bugs and woes is by far the most immersive and interactive application i have ever seen, in terms of creativity in its userbase and its ability to nurture that. However it will always be an application and nothing more, to move between worlds you need another client in no way associated with second life, and so ends its dream of world domination.

If you look around there are alternatives that have much promise for the next step in the metaverse saga, and no one can ever take away from second life the research and steps it is taking to meet that dream some day.

Anyhow sl rocks, and will rock till it remains no more, but rest assured we wont be without our freedoms and creative channels for long

OHHHH

maybe that Senator has been smoking something through those tubes.

When Amazon launched, not everyone was convinced such a thing would ever be more than a offbeat curiosity for a VERY small niche audience.

Computers were very expensive and most households did not own one. Connection to the internet was slow and often complicated to set up. Images were slow to load across dialup phone lines (often with a per-minute connection fee) and old 9600kps modems. It cost a very large upfront cost to get connected and then continuing charges to continue to access. Why would anyone go through all that cost, all that bother -- when they could far more easily just walk into a store for free? Most parts of the country didn't even have access to the net. It required people to trust businesses they had never heard of, to buy items they could not touch and inspect and try on for themselves. But by far the biggest roadblock of all, the "average consumer" would never trust their financial information to these insecure, new fangled websites. Internet commerce was seen as no threat at all to brick-and-mortar shops run by locally known businesses.

That was .. hmm, about 10 years ago, I think.

Yeah, well Ted Stevens has more important problems on his mind right about now. As amazing as the stupidity of a lot of our politicians is for spouting drivel, is the stupidity of the speechwriters and other hacks who give them their talking points.

As a former Alaskan, I can tell you Ted Stevens is pretty close to the image he projected there.

But yes, he has other things to discuss with the FBI right about now ^_^

The 3D virtual web becoming more dominant than the 2D web doesn't depend one iota on stability and customer service IMO. Those issues are more for those companies leasing out server (read: sim) space. It relies on an interface so intuitive that anybody could use it.

When I first used the Mosaic web browser in the early 90s, all I needed was a URL and basic mouse techniques (scrolling & clicking). So simple and intuitive you could get granny surfing and searching within minutes. Nothing's changed at all in that respect.

Second Life however...some newbies use it for days without even working out how to search for places or sit down.

What I want to know is, will there be Dwarves in Second Life in 10 years?

Only if they submit proof that their RL height is under 54 inches.

Ten years from now, we may all be batteries.

Lol and how many years ago did someone have the vision of the home catalogue service

About 100 years ago ^_^ Probably many people told Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck the same arguments.

Lol that's what I was hinting at

Amazon did have the foresight to go with a product that people wouldn't feel the need to touch and feel so much. Clothing is a product that isn't quite as well suited to online shopping, although these days it does reasonably well, people will always want to try on clothes.

As for the virtual world vision, there's something in it. RL corps here should be selling me their products. Which is where I think Mr Rosedale thinks we're heading. Having an island with a corporate name that I can only find by searching for it, isn't selling me jack.

They said the same thing about Orville Wright. Said he'd never get Wilbur off the ground