Here Comes the Open Source Metaverse - GigaOM

Not rated yet.

Nice overview from Wagner James Au of the leading work he saw at Virtual Worlds 08 in terms of companies and products trying to bring about an open 3D Web. While he leads with the line that any of these might make Second Life the Netscape of the virtual world movement, I don't see it. At least not with the current contenders. Now, I'm not so naive as to think that Second Life is unstoppable. I think *any* technology can easily be replaced, especially when 15 years is the whole of human history we've lived on the Web. As a comparison to any other human endeavor, that's quite a short time. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, but I will tell you one thing Second Life has that none of the products profiled in Au's piece have. Metaphor. Second Life may be a name that leaves you open to an onslaught of first-life-less-nerds-in-mom's-basement jokes, but the name does tell you everything you need to know. And the metaphor is woven through out the experience of the technology. As a developer I'm watching QWAQ, Project Wonderland, OpenSim, and RealXtend because these are interesting to me as technologies, but as compelling metaphors they leave me wanting, which is why I don't see any of them supplanting Second Life's dominance anytime soon. Technology is only as useful as the concepts it embodies, and after all, it's humans that use the stuff, right? Metaphors are woven all through are computer use, and in some ways you could argue that the only fault of Second Life is that the technology doesn't live up to the promise of the metaphor. So if you really want to compete with Second Life, start thinking about the story you're telling with your technology.