Rumor: Google Planning Virtual World

For the record: Blogs today are widely broadcasting a rumor "from an academic who heard through the PhD grapevine" and passed on by a VC that Google is putting together pieces to create a SL-like virtual world based on Google Earth. You've heard it all back in May. It makes more sense now that another rumor has it that Google is shopping for a ad-to-games serving company. ZDNet blog warns, "I'd be careful not to pay too much attention to a rumor put out by a partner in the VC firm that owns a substantial stake in Second Life — any news of Google creating its own virtual world is sure to drive up acquisition interest in Second Life from the search giant's competitors."

If this is truly the direction Google has taken, it will need to get it some physics and perhaps AI engines. Another acquisition?

Three thoughts on Second Life:
1. If Second Life wants to survive, it needs to open its tech and let people host their own sims (islands), much like they host websites now. Maybe it can package and sell its own "operating system" and charge money for that, and for having the off-grid sims integrated into the world to allow teleports. There's also a need for an external editing tool for 3D objects.

2. Can anyone calculate the dollar value of all Linden currency in circulation? It seems like a perfect business model for Linden Lab -- sell Lindens for dollars at a more or less fixed rate and re-invest the dollar mass. And you can cash out only through the auction-based LindeX (or privately through PayPal), there's no danger of a bank run since the "sell" value of Linden$ will drop nearly to zero as the supply surges.

3. Is Second Life the only place in the US now where you can legally gamble online? Here's what Linden's laywer has to say. (He also says, "Linden Lab does not offer any right of redemption for any sum of money, or any other guarantee of monetary value, for Linden Dollars." That's regarding the previous point).

1 comment:

  1. I would like to know about the developping of more sophisticated SW products preventing against using internet space for frauds and wasting time /and money/ of too many loyal users in the whole world. Just an example: In the previous year I contacted a site and looked through Google to find some signs to be sure it's quite safe. I found nothing to prove it's a fraud. I looked for months. Until this site dissapeared to the end of the year. And then, this year - I looked again, then Google found messages of users saying their ads/activity in the past were spam and/or frauds. No sign their site existed, no information was found again. How to distinguish between the legal sites and those who want to gain money through internet frauds? Obviously they use some negligence they know quite well about it, and don't miss to make money through deceit of people who are not quite aware about IT frauds.

    ReplyDelete

I am moderating all comments to weed out spam (there's a lot of it). Comments are usually approved within a day.

Related Posts with Thumbnails