rightasrain

greenland

prim torturer

While I am sure your snappy headline about virtual worlds disappearing is wrong (although it did get me to read your piece!), I think your points about business collaboration are absolutely right. We (Rezzable) create and operate the largest areas in SL now and find that the teamwork aspects are much less efficient inworld than via skype, email and basecamp.

The potential is significant for 3D web, but I personally think the opportunity is for entertainment and knowledge sharing (ie more engaging wikipedia type information discovery).

The current state of play in SL is way too limited for serious business. The avatars are not dramatic enough--it is like a puppet show level. There is no useful facial expressions to convey serious matters. For sure, video on skype or other type of desktop video sharing is more effective. PLus enterprise level service agreements and security are non-existant in SL.

Linden Labs, imho, is really just a research group and they are messing around with a lot of 3D web elements. They hit a goldmine on selling "virtual land" which really is a bubble (but I guess there are plenty of people who don't see that yet). They run close to 70,000 concurrent log-ons, but only 60 people can share an experience at the same time. So the main point is being able to use your inventory across a lot of areas. When someone solves that problem from a web perspective the entire reason for SL will vaporize. The promise of a virtual economy is also empty, actually it is also unneeded as paypal and other micropayment systems can/could easily integrate.

Net net--virtual worlds will morph toward 3D web entertainment and become a more easily accessed piece of the overall web.