Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years?

You know, I really don't think Phil Rosedale is concerned with SL dwarfing the internet so much as he wants to see this kind of setup become an addition to the internet. He was already rich when he started LL and has always come across to me as more of an idea man than a business man...which might explain some of the issues LL has.

Either way I don't think he's too concerned about SL's long term success (as in 10+ years into the future) as long as they are able to get this idea out there to be used on a larger scale. Why else would they open source the client and server sides of this thing?

Restricting and limiting people through exclusivity would be a much better business move...just ask your iPod!

10 years? I have a gnome living next door to me... So the future is here!!!!!

Morwen.

Agreed, the actual article talks more in terms of virtual worlds than it does Second Life itself.



Or not, just ask your Apple Lisa.

I just asked my iPod... it didn't answer back, only demanded that the 74Gb free should be filled up with music

(Ugh, the 4,81Gb I filled by now are 'only' around 1100 songs......)

Morwen.

I think SL will stay as a cul de sac of creative expression and exploration that will suit some people very well. I think it will be the vacation spot for the 3D world where people come to refresh their creativity and enjoy the beautiful user content.
A place where people can be Tinies, Furries and Dragons for awhile after a meeting at IBM.

The utility and efficiency of the web will never be replaced by "virtual worlds". With the web, I can simply go right to what I want to read (say, a news site) and read it, without having to load a big, fat client, log in, wait for everything to rez, teleport to some place, take a copy of an object, rez/wear it, and then use an extremely cumbersome and kludgy interface to read and navigate through it.

That's not even touching on critically important issues (both then AND now) like lag. Websites may load slow, but rarely do they take longer than the 10-second rule allows. Virtual worlds just have too much going on to not lag (and, before you say "but, in 10-20 years, they will have made the programs super-efficient!", featuritis will always trump attempts at efficiency, because the one single most important foundation goal of VR is mimicking reality. Mimicking reality to the degree that, as far as humans are concerned, VR = Reality is DAMN hard, and that will be just as true in the future as it is today.

With a web site, it doesn't carry that baggage; it doesn't need to. It does what it does, and does it very well, and thus, orders of efficiency are being squeezed out of it now which makes it a very stable, polished, compelling, and useful platform which will be dominant for a long time to come.

As such, all this "SL (VW) will dwarf the web in (X) years!" talk is silly starry-eyed futurist speculation with no basis in history.

I'm not saying that Orville will never get Wilbur off the ground; I'm saying he won't get him to the Moon with just an airplane, which I find essentially analogous to the assertions made in this vein about VW.

I think it has been mentioned all over the internet, as well as in magazine--the future of virtual reality environments (MMOs), leads us in the direction of Google Earth, mixed with Second Life. Keep in mind, if LL is the one developing this "possible" technology, then we will be working with a massive grid already, and will have to blend the two.

Either that, or another developer (like Google themselves) will create a competing application, which will be structured in the same way as Google Earth (or for those that know, the game SPORE).

Perhaps the web itself, will be browse-able through a similar 3D environment? Combining all the wonderful elements of SL with the knowledge base of the web.

Personally (call me crazy), I want to put on VR-goggles and gloves, and freely roam the digital plains. I want to be able to have a 360 view of my virtual space, simply by moving my head around—of course, this technology doesn’t force the user to be in first-person view…you can still view from 3rd-person view if you want. It sure would be fun to build with VR-goggles and gloves—hands on sculpting, a technology which has been tossed around for quite some time—and one that I believe to be very likely and conceivable.

Let us look at the birth of the internet. The lucky RL citizen got their hands on it around 1993…95—somewhere around there. Now look how far we’ve come in that short time. The exponential growth of the internet AND hardware technology is going to continue to explode. Either applications like SL will be on a much larger scale…or we will re-invent the concept into something even more wondrous. The sky is the limit. What was once science fiction, is now reality—and what is science fiction now, will one day be a reality.

/me is proud one of her smart assed remarks was used for good instead of evil.

Hmm I can't wait for the day that I can strap on my virtual reality sunglasses, wear my virtual reality bodysuit, jump on my RL stationary bike, and go bicycling through SL instead of my RL streets where I stand a good chance of getting killed. Or the day that I can wear my virtual reality gear and go jogging through SL on my RL treadmill... all the while powering my computer with the energy I've created.

We can see now, with SL right in front of us, that 2D and 3D are radically different information environments. I think 2D will likely prevail in dealing with "linear" data - things you might read in a book or fill out on a form, or graphics you might see in a movie or a magazine (or on a bathroom wall). 3D will likely prevail in dealing with social interaction (including pixel sex), immersive entertainment (I suppose that would include pixel sex as well), and things like fly-throughs of real or imagined landscapes or architectural spaces, or real-time, 3D sonogram analogues of remote patients' beating hearts.

Which will prevail overall? I'm beginning to think that is basically a silly question, especially at a time when 3D VR is still in its infancy.

The Internet will prevail.

And whether SL is remembered as an Internet Stanley Steamer, an exciting concept in its day, or prevails as the ultimate Toyota (which I cite because it is now in process of surpassing General Motors O.O) or something in between is going to be up to Philip Rosedale and company. I'm rooting for them, but I'm taking no bets.

Pretty well said.

Maybe its like those who said by the year 2000 well all by driving flying cars, have robot maids, etc.

The reality of the eletronics boom was pretty facinating by itself - but it wasnt what dreamers thought was going to happen.

a 3d world like structure may one take be the web

it shure isnt going to be secondlife

reasons are numerous, but it all comes down to SL's limited-restrictive system, and the fact that the only one allowed to run servers is Linden Labs, who do not care if everything you have ever done goes poof tommarow via a glitch

The reality is the dreams usually do fall short. I do think that what ever the interwebmetauniverse thingie becomes, Uncle Phil should get some credit for it.

I think the point most of the posts are missing is that it's the concept of 3d space as opposed to 2d space that will replace the web. I'm guessing that in the furture, a more simplistic, less featured type of 3d interface will replace the web, not SL.

yeah.

him and Al Gore.

Unless he's still making movies by then.

I don’t recall the exact principal, but it states—in a cubic fashion—the exponential growth of technology. At the [Christmas tree] rate of growth we are at, we will—relatively—be much further advanced, in a much shorter time. And let us not forget that we the consumer are lagging behind (quite a bit at times) to what R&D are piecing together. Yes, we do not have jetpacks we take to school yet, but in a rather short period, we will be experiencing Unreal Engine 3 graphics, streaming over broadband. Our fiber optic cables (the newest breed) can support massive amounts of data, back and forth. Every day I see my D/L and Upload speeds still to this day increasing…a MB a second sometimes…I don’t claim to know a ton about networks and speeds, but I know 300K a second used to be blazing fast, and that’s already been doubled on my end. *shrugs*

Its called Moore's Law

http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/

But it doesnt encompass all of technology. Not even all computer technology.

Or the earth melts from global warming.

tori

(I know, I know .....)