Comments on: Second Life/Metaverse Readings and Lecture

I thought the readings, and especially the guest lecture, about second life and the metaverse were very interesting. I really like the speaker's overview of how GUIs have evolved over the last 40 years, and his introduction on how they will evolve in the future. The Cobalt/Croquet 3-D Internet project he showed us a video of was really cool, although I don't know how important/applicable it really is. While a peer-to-peer version of the Internet would be more efficient and would stay connected and updated better, I just don't see the need for a 3-D interface when a 2-D one can do all the same things. The 3D interface where more than one person occupy a "world" at the same time adds a lot of needless information, clutter, and removes anonymity. Also, it is much harder to navigate to the information you want in 3-D than in 2-D -- there's a whole 'nother dimension to navigate. This is plainly visible in Second Life, which has tons of needless information and clutter (much of it adult oriented). And as for the argument that 3-D Internet would be good for group collaboration becuase you can discuss in a 3-D environment when "everyone" (everyone's avatars) are present, I just don't see why 3-D makes this any better. You can already have these collaborative efforts or virtual classrooms over chat rooms in the current 2-D Internet. You can even make them more face to face than with avatars by using webcams.

As for companies that "have investigated the potential and started to develop virtual landscapes that promote their compan[ies]," I have visited some of these landscapes in Second Life, and don't feel very inclined to buy their products. I feel that people who were interested in buying these products would either go to the real-life location, or view its easily-navigated, 2-D website if they wanted more information on them. This may just be me, but it seems like virtual worlds, especially Second Life, are predominately inhabited by people who aren't sociable in real life and just want the anonymity so they can feel more sociable, or they want to engage in the gigantic adult industry market on Second Life, which to me seems to be the equivalent of a giant, anonymous, nerd orgy. These people arn't interested in learning about your products, they just want virtual friendship and/or virtual sex. If you think I'm wrong in assuming Second Life is dominated by sex, read this article. Quote: "Of the 19 popular destination icons on my map, 9 of them were virtual pornography accounting for more 51% of the total population listed for popular locations in Second Life."