Will Virtual Worlds Become Bigger Than The Web?

I've decided I'm going to start writing a few more posts about Second Life and virtual worlds in general. I've been visiting SL on a regular basis and I'm finding that the more time I spend there, the more interesting it is becoming to me.

I've also been prompted to write by this revealing 4 part video interview with Second Life CEO Philip Rosedale. Rosedale expresses his thoughts about the current state of Second Life, their plans for future improvements, and where virtual worlds might be heading in the future. It's well worth a viewing if you are at all interested in the nature of virtual worlds and social media.

Rosedale has made the grand assertion that virtual worlds could potentially become bigger than the web is now, and that we could be at the beginning of something that has a long term impact on the world (and he's not just talking about Second Life, but other competing worlds as well). He does also state that he could be wrong.

Whatever the case, it's clear that the idea of virtual worlds has been around for a while, and doesn't seem to be going away. Second Life is the first world to reach some sort of critical mass in terms of popularity, visibility, usage and economy. It is currently about the size of San Francisco, has around 200,000 visitors a day, and has a million dollar a day economy. Is there a chance of this going backwards or coming to a halt for some reason, say if the real world U.S. economy fell into recession soon? Perhaps, only time will tell.

Rosedale makes the fundamental point that although we use the term 'cyberspace' today, the web as we know it is not really a space or a place. He maintains that to create popular 3D digital worlds with the physical presence of 'us', potentially has far greater reach than anything we have created so far on the web. He explains that the main lure of of virtual worlds is that there are other people there. You can just walk up to strangers and talk to them, more easily than you can in real life. This human interaction is empowering. Virtual worlds can bring people together in a very social way.

I'm finding that the most interesting interactive experiences emerging at the moment are ones with a shared social experience, where the core engagement or interaction is with other people. Answer me this question: when was the last time you wanted to spend more than a hour at a time interacting at a single site in 'cyberspace'? Was it a site that involved interacting with other people, using new social media tools such as Facebook, flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter or Second Life? Was it game played with other people over a network?

Will virtual worlds eventually become bigger than the web? Who knows, but I'm going to keep an open mind about their value and merit before being so quick as to write them off at this very early stage. I'm going to keep exploring and learning for the time being and see where it leads.

My avatar name is jjprojects infinity in Second Life. Please feel free to add me as a friend.

Time To Bash New Media, Again

Is it just me or has there been more than the usual amount of new social media bashing going on in old media lately?

Earlier this week Steven Lewis and Laurel Papworth wrote posts about the ridiculous SMH article, Facebook labelled a $5b waste of time. Steven asserted that this article brought into play his "favourite media ploy: the nonsense statistic"

Laurel maintained that "They HATE us. With a passion. Every article about blogs, wikis, Facebook, MySpace and social networks is one about stalkers, paedophiles, time-wasters at work, mis-information, and- God help us - poor grammar/spellingz?"

In addition, there has been more than the usual amount of Second Life bashing going on lately. This post outlines the string of articles that have appeared recently in publications such as Forbes, the LA Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The question is: why is this happening now? Could it be that old media is beginning to feel more than a little threatened by new social media, and that people feel compelled to criticise what they can't understand?

Could it also be that most brands entering SL (or rather those advising brands) are approaching the Second Life community in an inappropriate way. Surely it's a bit early to be declaring the brand experiments in virtual worlds to be a bust. I'm sure the brands that have experimented with social media have learned a lot from the experiences they have already had - others are being left behind by not participating.

Haven't we seen this kind of thing before? I seem to remember that the first time around there were some ups and downs, but in time things began to work out pretty well for a lot of people (and brands) who began working with (what was then) new media and stuck with it.

Are Interconnected Virtual Worlds The Future Of The Web?

A LOT seems to have been going on in the arena of virtual worlds lately. Amongst other events, Disney acquired Club Penguin (a virtual world for kids) for $350 million. Mattel has even launched a Barbie Girls virtual world. According to Techcruch, Barbie Girls hit 3 million users in just the first 60 days in operation.

Some other virtual world efforts include There, Entropia Universe, Cyworld, Zwinktopia, Stardoll, Haboo Hotel, Web Kinz, Gaia Online, Neopets. In addition, the newly released Multiverse platform allows people to actually create their own online 3D worlds.

All this activity begs the question: are we going to see an eventual migration to an interconnected network of different 3D virtual worlds on the web? Will we then be able to wander around a 3D virtual web, moving from world to world, perhaps with the same avatar and user profile? If this becomes the case, we would of course still be able to jump back to the 2D web at the click of a button.

A current Business Week article Just Ahead: The Web As A Virtual World addresses this concept. The article points out that Google, Linden Lab and IBM are all working on products based on the belief that this scenario is not just possible, it is on the way.

It does seem clear that it's not going to happen any time soon, but I can't help wondering what the web will be like in 10 years. Is that enough time for this idea to become a reality, and then for it to become mainstream? It does pay to think about what has happened during the last 10 years. This kind of change seems equivalent to the amount of change since the early days of the web.

Significantly, Linden Lab (makers of Second Life) plans to publish the software code for its servers. Developers will then be able to modify it to create their own worlds and build connections between them.

The previously mentioned Multiverse Network, which was founded by some early Netscape employees, has developed avatars that can move from one world to the next. However, people need to use the company's browser which surfs only worlds created using the Multiverse software. Multiverse gives away the tools so that users can build their worlds for free. The Business Week article maintains that more than 200 are in the works.

Within 18 months, the Web3D Consortium (a 3D web standards group) also hopes to launch an avatar that can jump between sites. The Web3D Consortium was formed to

"provide a forum for the creation of open standards for Web3D specifications, and to accelerate the worldwide demand for products based on these standards through the sponsorship of market and user education programs."

It seems clear that highly engaging and entertaining virtual worlds are going to become a big part of the future of the web. I for one have decided to spend more time in Second Life, as well as trying out other virtual worlds. Apart from having fun, I'd like to achieve a good understanding of the the Second LIfe community and how it operates while it's still reasonably early days. However the story plays out, it's certain that there is a lot more for virtual worlds on the near horizon.

What do you think? Are interoperable virtual worlds going to play a central role in the future of the web, or is this just more 3D virtual hype?