Second Life

There's been a lot of talk about Second Life recently. I wonder what the ratio is between people who've heard of it and people who have actually played with it (or, for that matter, people who have actually bought Linden Dollars).

Second Life has managed to sell some pretty significant companies into giving them free PR. Reuters, Sun Microsystems and IBM have all made something of a big deal about being associated with Second Life.

A lot of their success, I think, comes from the fact that the concept encapsulates so many different elements of the new web. It gives a physical (if virtual) dimension to web technologies and habits as varied as online gaming, instant messaging, chat rooms, Pay Pal and eBay for example.

I feel like it's pretty safe to say that in its current form Second Life will never become 'mainstream'. The future of the web lies in its cross-over with the real world, not it's ability to make a virtual one.

I do think that it's a step towards a viable replacement for conference calls (and instant messaging and chat rooms for that matter).

I think it's worth mentioning that my former colleague, Barry Lee , is sufficiently bleeding edge that he was presenting 3-D net meetings as an exciting development about a year ago...