SL Exchange
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Zealots
I thought that the below exchange - generated by the photo I put up on Monday - was worth posting for wider visibility...mostly because I have deep respect for Tillerman's opinion and recognize the larger point he's making with his comment. But the community building aspect of "Second Life" type technology can't be overlooked....particularly when sailing bloggers are leading proponents of using the Internet to foster conectons with the broader sailing community...
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Geee - two of the top saiing bloggers have disappeared down a virtual rabbit hole into a Second Life. Maybe there is more to this than I thought? Perhaps I should give it a try?
Can I run a marathon in Second Life? Are there yacht races? Are there granddaughters?
6:07 PM
Are there spell checkers?
6:08 PM
There's no doubt that "real life" is always going to be, well, more real than piloting an Avatar around a digital world...at least for now ;-) What I think is interesting is the way that the game brings people together to interact with a level of "richness" that is generally missing from emails, IM's and yes even blogs.
At the moment the experience is somewhat limited due to computing power but in my opinion we are seeing the leading edge of a technology that will change the face of everything - the analogy I like to use is think of the gap between the old reel to reel tape player I remember my Dad having in the mid 1970's and the ipod today. We could have never envisioned something like the ipod when we thought the reel to reel was the bees knees but the core concept of portable audio was there and in 20 years or so it was extrapolated out to the ipod...which one could argue is in and of itself just the leading edge of something we can't yet envision. The point being that the excitment around "Second Life" has to do - for me - with what I can imagine being able to to as the technology gets more powerful. As well it's a cool way to interact more broadly with a community of (in my case) sailors. Though believe me when I say that there is no "community" that goes unexplored in SL. Use your imagination on that.
From a recent NYT article..."Virtual world proponents -- including a roster of Linden Labs investors that includes Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com; Mitchell D. Kapor, the software pioneer; and Pierre Omidyar, the eBay co-founder -- say that the entire Internet is moving toward being a three-dimensional experience that will become more realistic as computing technology advances." If this is true and I believe it is then watch this space! Your Granddaughter surely will be....
9:47 AM