As a matter of fact, the realXtend project is something like a mix of Gravatar + OpenID for the 2D Web: use any entry point to log in, bring your avatar and your inventory with you, no matter which grid you’re connecting to.

Gentle reader,
today I want to talk a little about the realXtend project which came upon my radar recently and impressed me great lengths. Their goal is, put in simple terms, to develop the InterGrid about which Gwyneth Llewellyn spoke recently in one…

but sadly only a complete repeat of the “metaverse” of 1995-7

all it shows it that history has become a dirty word in the techbanker driven bubbles of the late 20th and now early 21st century.

and that virtual worlds techologies when combined with the horrible myth of Googles will not be what the gullible want.

but what you deserve.

People need to respect the simple concepts of “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. The internet works, it works well. VHS and the floppy disk also worked well and even now in their death throes their still putting up a fight.

The protocols exist to allow these disparate worlds to operate on existing technology, there’s no rush to change that and it took a long long term for the development of the internet to arrive in a form that found mass consumer confidence. Along the way there were twists and turns and claims that Tim Berners-Lee wasn’t exactly impressed with the development of the gif, and that’s quite key because at this very early stage it’s highly unlikely that what we now envisage will be the reality.

As for land barons, they’re not going anywhere. People seem to be under the misguided impression that cheap web hosting means server hosting is cheap, but compare bandwidth and resources from an average website to that which is required to run a virtual world and reality bites. Open Sim is cheaper than Second Life, but it has no economy, they’re only just getting around to transferring assets and there are a lot less users. Eventually bills have to be paid and the land barons will be presenting their bills as they do now. Who those land barons are is the issue, I’m sure companies like Godaddy are paying attention.

However I do get the impression that Linden Lab would be happier with Anshe Chung managing the land business than they themselves.

Second Life will be long remembered no matter what the future holds because it will always be remembered as a pioneering project, but as you point out, pioneers are oft swallowed up in the tidal wave and Linden Lab need to position themselves sensibly. Whether that’s via a foundation I’m not at all sure, I’m not convinced their big enough, but Sun, Novell or someone like that might be able to fill the spaces.

I find the notion of placing LL at the center of this VW development a really far stretch of the imagination. The idea SL would create any of the standards that could be developed, such as:
* Asset Server Protocols to artificially maintain value of 3D content
* Multiple client/browser/server support
* 3D standards to ‘import and export’ your 3D content cross world such as a high quality VRML
* Data portability to create cross-world avatars (or one AgAv – see the prometeus scenario)
based on their prim based (ug)content (which is of no value within the projection you created, see Blue Mars) and its half a million active users is completely unreal. I think it’s far more likely SL will have to adjust to these standards or become obsolete themselves, designing and maintaining them is well beyond their capabilities realistically speaking.

Sure IBM is IN/working with Second Life, but like they say time and time again, they are everywhere, which is exactly where you should be if you want to create interoperability, because there already IS an increasingly interoperable datastream connecting these worlds called ‘The Internet’ and this is evolving entirely without the need of a Second Life, Foundation or no foundation.

This kind of object oriented thinking, where you can take your second life avatar from place to place on a single grid only appeals to a very, very small niche – while goal oriented design (what do we actually WANT from VW’s?) will show you interoperability is far from a ‘must’, and its uses are not only fairly limited, they are largely captured in 2D data flexibility and the future ability of VW’s to tap into this data.

What is clear, however, is that the multiplicity of micro-worlds are likely to have a very limited long-term appeal: I rather doubt that more than a handful of those being started now will be around in five years’ time.

However, the “meme” of LL starting/joining a Foundation has been around the SLogosphere for quite some time. The oldest article I wrote about it was on November, 2005 (http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2005/11/16/sl-evangelisation-or-how-to-extend-linden-labs-marketing-efforts/), and although it talks about “crowdsourcing marketing”, it mentions Mitch Kapor as a possibility to point LL into a “foundation” as part of LL’s efforts.

More recently, a week before that “math article” came out on the Herald, I took some time to write about the Open Source Grid (Open Source Second Life — The Geeks Strike Back) and their creators’ wish to establish a foundation for it. The difference perhaps was that it would be a non-LL-founded foundation (sorry about the pleonasm), but I’m sure that if Gareth Ellison goes ahead and turns his not-for-profit into a foundation, this would very likely get LL’s sponsorship as well.

jcm, I’d be pleased to run your survey if you wish, but please ask permission from either the CSI:NY team or from the Electric Sheep Company first. My email address is gwyneth.llewelyn@gwynethllewelyn.net.