Terra Nova reports on the potential business migration from Second Life, due in part to its “clunky technology”. Some of the early comers in the virtual market, such as Well Fargo, have left and set up their virtual tent elsewhere.
I agree with TN about the fact that this is an expected backlash, but I also would like to add that it is a welcome one. It may be just me, but I have always been particularly underwhelmed by Second Life, it is to me nothing more than a glorified chatroom, and I tend to get tired of the time it gets in technology news reports and podcasts. The problem I see with it is that it has become one of those technologies that people who are not into technology are supposed to know, so in order to sound clued-in and updated, it is brought out as an example of the virtual economy. It also makes for nice and trendy subject for lazy journalists who want to convey trendy news from the wild virtual frontiers without making a lot of effort (for example, reports about virtual tours).
The backlash will perhaps see the end of the virtual.com bubble, but that does not mean that virtual worlds are not useful. Second Life maybe over-hyped, but there’s much more out there that requires analysis.
In the end, what good is a virtual world if you cannot blow things up properly?
2 Comments
Anonymous · July 1, 2007 at 4:37 pm
A book about online games and exploitation, ripping apart EULAs. Could be worth a read or a review copy for SCRIPT-ED
Andres Guadamuz · July 2, 2007 at 3:31 am
Must get that book!