Within ten years, virtual worlds will be bigger than the Web itself. So says Philip Rosedale

My $.02 is that there will always be a place for legacy web applications (for the more simple everyday functions that do not require interaction etc.). But when it comes to collaborative environments - like virtual meetings (think goto meeting), virtual classes (think Blackboard) its pretty clear that in time the 2D variety just will not provide the user experience users will expect. So my hunch is those services are looking very hard at ways to add the 3D virtual environment method to their business models (if they want to stick around that is)..... And with the emerging technologies like Croquet (http://www.croquetconsortium.org), OpenSim, and the possibility of the Secondlife grid server becoming opensource the writing may already be on the wall for them.

As for Philip Rosedale's complete remarks on the future of virtual environments - check them out here:

http://deepthought.newsvine.com/_news/2007/08/02/873205-second-life...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nathan Hutchings on August 12, 2007 at 5:07am

Hi Rich
I have been using second life for two weeks now and as a secondary IT teacher I can see some of the possibilities for SL and other VR environments. But SL and the like are very bandwidth heavy and it is quicker to navigate the existing sources of information on the current internet | text based | images | some movies | animation paradigm. I do believe that things like SL will become very important possibly sooner than we think because many many young people have extensive experience in online VR environments like WOW.

Permalink Reply by Rich White on August 12, 2007 at 1:39pm