Caught a post over on the Windows Live Spaces News website (Link) discussing internal builds of a plug-in for MS Virtual Earth that might be interesting, assuming it’s not an April Fool’s Day joke. From the post:

If you’re familiar with Second Life from Linden Labs you’ll be right at home in Third World, a virtual world without limit. One of the major differences is that the space you live and interact in is actually the Virtual Earth…

The post lists some “key differentiators”, but the only one I really like is that this system reportedly integrates with existing social networks such as MySpace and Friendster; with Facebook supposedly soon to be supported.

The other bullet points don’t impress me. For starters, I seriously doubt they’ll be able to keep children out of adults-only sections of the world. It’s not a matter of controls on their end. It’s the fact that some parents provide children access to adult content.

And that Dyna-drobe “geofencing” system makes absolutely no sense to me as it conflicts with what I’ve learned: lots of people enjoy the process… the hassle, if you will… of going through the ritual of choosing clothes for an activity. So automating it very likely removes some of their fun. If it were my decision, I’d make it an opt-in system. Maybe it already is.

Lastly, it appears that Duran Duran will be making a virtual world appearance. Tickets will run you a cool 50 Flooz. I wonder if there’s an exchange system handling Lindens-to-Flooz conversion. Or maybe people can use the tickets for the show that was supposed to happen inside Second Life. And maybe this really is an April Fools.