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Virtual snail race, or mere hallucination?

A week or two ago, I found myself describing the greater metaversapolitan area to a friend who had never heard of things like Second Life or There.com, virtual worlds or massively multiplayer online games, and who had only passing knowledge of apps like Google Earth and the concept of mirror worlds. I told her about the little business boomlet the sector seems to be experiencing these days, and the potential such places and applications hold for not only increasing our knowledge of the real world and the ways we connect there, but for making possible new modes of being and richer ways of interacting. A great place to get your fantasy on, and you can pull down six figures there, to boot, or so the marketing goes. Regardless, I said, it was exciting to be a part of it, to see this new thing unfold before my eyes, to be reporting on it from the front lines, so to speak, and to ride along and see just where it might go — even if it’s headed for a fiery crash, as some would argue, or a more mundane sputtering thud.

Her reaction was interesting: “It sounds like you’re living through the 1960s of technology,” quoth she. This strikes me as pretty spot on. (more…)

Just a reminder: 3pointD will be at the Eyebeam OpenLab in Manhattan tomorrow evening, August 10, from 6-9pm, to take part in the Metaverse Roadmap pre-release party, which Electric Sheep Jerry Paffendorf has titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Metaverse but Were Too Afraid To Ask. “The night consists of presentations and conversations about the metaverse space (video games, virtual worlds, CAD, maps, and web apps) coming out of and inspired by the Metaverse Roadmap Project,” Jerry writes on his blog, where the final liine-up of presenters can be found. I’ll be in conversation with noted Second Life resident Prokofy Neva, dicussing the convergence or collision, depending on your point of view, of real life and virtual life in terms of business, culture and political issues in places like Second Life and There.com. What are the the relative merits and pitfalls of RL businesses, people and uses increasingly entering virtual worlds? Does a line in the virtual sand need to be drawn around metaversal
spaces? Should be segregated into “virtual” and “mirror” worlds, never to meet, or can a single metaversal space possibly contain the multitudes necessary for a peaceful co-existence of the two paradigms? We’ll take a flyer at some answers to these and other questions and let the audience get involved as well. Good fun, and tasty food for metaversal thought. See you there.