It’s been a few weeks since my last foray into the virtual world Second Life. I’ll probably logon this weekend having heard that the Second Life Community Conference is taking place right here in Chicago. Even if I wanted to go physically, I couldn’t because the event has been sold out for a while now! And part of me wonders if crossing the streams of one’s real life and second life, to borrow a Ghostbusters analogy, is a good thing. Insert the usual geek/nerd jokes here.
I only learned of the SLCC yesterday while reading an article on CNet concerning the conference and what they labeled as a “backlash” against Second Life due to some long standing technical issues and the failure of SL to live up to the wet dreams of a number of corporations hoping to make some real money in the virtual world.
After reading this, I remembered a lot of skepticism about whether or not anyone would be able to make money on the web and how companies like Amazon.com were destined to failure. Obviously, a lot, if not most, of the early web ventures failed, some spectacularly. But in the end, a number of companies were successful and now Amazon, Google, Yahoo, and others are household names and for many, it’s hard to imagine doing business without the web. Second Life may not go on to the success that Amazon ultimately had, but it’s really too early to tell. I think that virtual spaces like SL probably are the next big thing, but it will take some time to develop the new business paradigms that are valid in that space. If Linden Lab can hang on long enough and don’t make too many mistakes, they, like Amazon, may be around to reap the rewards of pioneering a new medium.