It is lonely having a second life

I received an email via a community informatics list, this week. The author is C. Wagner. I mention this because the community use of technology is a passion, especially as virtual and engaged communities are surfacing. Being part of networks who are researching the intersections is broadening my understanding of the importance of open source and what it means to be part of a community of interest.

BBC News Magazine just published an article about the fading
interest in Second Life. If corroborates what many of us Second Life
users have experienced already, namely that it’s pretty lonely out there
in Second Life. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm

I don’t think this diminishes the value of this technology, and still
consider virtual worlds as an excellent learning and simulation tool,
albeit not (yet) mainstream. So now, after some serious over-hyping,
reality appears to have set in.

One might also argue that a world such as Second Life cannot be run just
as a commercial interest, but that governance has to be handed to its
population. In other words, it needs to be open sourced, in more ways
than one.

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