The New York Times is carrying a story I figure is worth mentioning, if only because I’ve addressed the same issues on this blog a number of times and like to harp on them. The article, “Awaiting Real Sales From Virtual Shoppers” (Link), is a bit glazed over, but I did appreciate some of the details that fell out. Some of the highlights for me:

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The first time I experienced a virtual simulation was in 1985. The military systems on which I was being trained were usually nothing more than big interactive screens inside a mocked-up space; not nearly as fun as firefighting training in blazing boiler rooms full of smoke, or ship flooding trainers where you had to team together to escape through a hatch leading to a flooded room above you (tough to do). Those primitive systems were still interesting to me though, mostly because of my passion for filmmaking, with which I saw obvious similarities. It wasn’t until a few years later when I read Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” that I saw the potential which sparked my return to college for a second degree.
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Yesterday evening I stumbled upon mention over on The Weekly Squeek blog (Link) of an Economist article interviewing millionaire space tourist and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. Here’s an excerpt from that interview (Link):

But Mr Shuttleworth is most excited about free software’s potential to open up the third dimension in the display and navigation of information. “In the space station there was no sensation of up or down,” he recalls. Continue reading →

Via Tateru Nino on the Second Life Insider comes word (Link) that a “Microsoft XBox” island has broken the virtual surface in Second Life. As Tateru says, Microsoft’s presence isn’t news, but their intentions will certainly fuel speculation, especially with Sony’s Playstation 3 “Home” (reLink) in beta and full release on the horizon.

I tend to agree it’s most likely an advertising effort, but who knows. If Linden Lab does have intentions of going open source and pushing SL as a kind of internet 3D standard, it’d probably be easier to facilitate avatar portability (using the same avatar across virtual spaces) if a “console continent” was constructed from the same underlying codebase.

So if Sony’s PS3 is finally going to have games that make it worth the high price tag, and they are go live with “Home” this Fall, then what better way for Microsoft to respond than with lower prices and perhaps an announcement aimed directly at “Home”?

Those following virtual worlds have probably heard about recent “changes” to Linden Lab’s position in regards to how they – or supposedly their residents – will police Second Life to make it “safe, together” (Link). While I’ve been involved in the debates, there is a separate opinion I’ve formed regarding what’s occurred that I consider worth mentioning here: the less like the Internet Second Life becomes, the less reason there is for a company to stake a claim inside it.

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I’ve repeatedly said that the best, if not only, reason for a company to enter Second Life is to get a sense of what the future 3D internet might be like (reLink). Linden Lab’s dogged determination to maintain a relatively strict hands-off policy made Second Life an excellent sandbox for advertising experiments and brand marketing tests. Griefers and virtual grey goo attacks and a virtual weapons market {which includes this gem, the Insult Bot – reLink}, as well as residents who both claim to live inside the virtual world and seem to be obsessed beyond all reason with it (and anything/anyone associated with it), offer glimpses into the kinds of issues a company’s future online presence may encounter.
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