The Pink event, held October 16 at the Disney fan park in Second Life called Mouse World, was a hit and demonstrated the burgeoning power of virtual worlds. Money was raised for breast cancer research and awareness.
I recently read an article from the Journal of Information Systems Education (refereed) titled Extending the classroom through Second Life. The authors report a figure from 2007 that states "80 percent of active Internet users will have a virtual presence in the form of an 'avatar' in at least one virtual world by the end of 2011." If true, online 3-D virtual worlds will indeed become the second great Internet revolution, possibly as great in magnitude as the world wide web itself.
So what does this all mean and why is virtual world technology becoming such a sociocultural phenomena? Since the Romans introduced the concept of a world wide web by building their extensive road system, human beings have reached out with manifest destiny-like ventures to extend life to and beyond all possible borders.
Once we learned to use email we extended societal borders greatly but lost some human touch in the process. Now, we are claiming it back and virtual worlds is one way we are doing that. Nonverbal communication cues are part of Second Life and similar environments, unlike practically any other medium on the web right now.
This morning in Second Life I attended a live Folk concert broadcast from the U.K., then attended a class on basic building in Second Life, both broadcast in real time. These are great technologies that will eventually be present on Wyoming Entrepreneur island.
Stay tuned.
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