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An update from the Metaverse Roadmap: We spent a fun session this afternoon envisioning some of the things that might come to pass in the metaverse in two- to ten-years time. Some tentative conclusions, for your perusal:

More and more virtual worlds will start coming online as venture capital money discovers the space. As this happens, they will wink out with greater frequency as well. The coming and going of VWs will be disruptive to many of the communities that have formed in these worlds, but communities will prove stronger than platforms, and will migrate from world to world in search of a safe and stable home. To facilitate this, more cross-platform applications like Xfire will emerge, ultimately leading to a strengthening of bonds among users.

A few more possibilities, drawn at random from the crowd (though admittedly leaning toward the more amusing), after the jump:

We’ll see a decline in business travel as a result of virtual world business applications.

Government regulators will require real-world ID information from people wanting to create an account in online games.

Traditional marketing will give way to viral marketing done in online worlds.

People who spend a great deal of time in virtual worlds will consume less real-world stuff.

Young people will have excellent social skills as a result of being online. However, they may be different from the social skills that adults have today.

Birdwatchers will be angry with the fact that every bird has become annotated via ubiquitous virtual-world technologies.

Politics and presidential campaigns will move into virtual worlds.

Cyberspace crimes will actually go to trial in the United States.

Current AOL users will discover Second Life; current Second Life users will leave Second Life.

Anshe Chung will earn $1 million in Second Life.

An Al Qaeda cell will be discovered in Second Life.

Hewlett-Packard will release personal 3D printers.

Blizzard will release a World of Warcraft operating system, Joi Ito is named CEO.

And perhaps the least contentious prediction for ten years from now: The Metaverse Roadmap will release its first two-year update.