The condescension I hear is unfortunate because the truth is that in many ways “cyberspace” has invaded the real world already. I’ve designed products, modeled them in CAD and never seen the real product. For me they only exist in my mind and in the virtual space of my CAD system. Most everything people use in the real world starts off in a small kind of cyberspace.

If you’re familiar from where the term “cyberspace” originates, and I assume you are, you know that it was more about data then representationalism. It wasn’t a videogame. Cyberspace is Gibson; Metaverse is Stephenson. Whereas Metaverse was described as more of a place, Cyberspace was described as more like… Wal*Mart’s electronically-based distribution system. As the visualized data that’s associated with locations and things, schedules and dollar figures. And those are all things that are very much woven into our real world right now. The stock market is no more tangible than cyberspace.

The reason some of us find Second Life interesting isn’t because it’s like a game. We didn’t go in expecting to be entertained and amused. We find it interesting because it’s the future. It’s like a PLM system. It’s UGS’s product lifecycle management software wrapped up in Stephenson’s avatar-based communication system tied into social networks and much much more. Those who think of it on the same level as a videogame are really missing the point when people like Mitch Kapor talk about SL. Is it any wonder that the best know success stories in recent years (e.g. Pierre Omidyar), find time for it? Or that Amazon programmers are investigating the possibilities of linking to it? No.

Furthermore, and most importantly for me, things built in Second Life can be taken to manufacturing. Nothing sophisticated to be sure, but then Apple computers used to come in wooden cases. If you use your imagination and put some pieces together, you might come up with something like this: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=577 .If you can’t imagine it, then we’ll see you in 20 years years or so when it comes to pass.

Hey, they finally got that on covered.

Maybe I expressed myself poorly…I have an interest in MySpace, for example, but I don’t really want to go to MySpace or have a profile there :)

I’m getting interested in the possibility of machinima in SL. Time to see how complicated it would be to set up three different avatars running from the same machine and have them converse in real time…