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Second Life’s maiden voyage across the metaverse
July 8, 2008
One small teleport for avatars, one giant leap for virtual worlds is how Second Life is viewing the first crossing of its members between platforms.
While not quite the equivalent of finding a parallel universe or landing on the moon, the achievement is a significant one for Linden Lab’s partnership with IBM.
The two announced they were joining forces last October to develop “universal avatars” that could roam freely between virtual worlds. Today’s announcement on Linden’s Second Life blog, with its accompanying video showing the “Beam me up Scotty” moment, represents the first fruits of that collaboration.
“This is a historic day for Second Life and for virtual worlds in general…marking the first time an avatar has moved from one virtual world to another,” it said.
It also gives Linden and IBM the lead in establishing a possible de facto standard for virtual worlds.
However, they have shown little enthusiasm for cooperating with other virtual world owners on standards to date and have become focused instead on the business opportunity.
In April, they announced they would develop an enterprise-class virtual world to convince companies of the value of using avatars and 3D environments.
“Interoperability is a key component of the 3D Internet and an important step to enabling individuals and organisations to take advantage of virtual worlds for commerce, collaboration, education, operations and other business applications,” said Colin Parris, IBM’s Digital Convergence vice president, yesterday.
The teleporting breakthrough is a step forward in that regard, apart from one small glitch that could offend corporate sensibilities. The fully-dressed Second Life avatars were not wearing a stitch of clothing when they re-materialised in the other virtual world.
Thanks for the story , now is up to all of us to demand Open Standards , full interoperability,
Posted by: blogger | July 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pm | Report this commenthttp://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml , to make sure every one is in and out, this is just the beginning….will the EU and the USA make sure ? do they care? what about mobile devices and 3d projectors? if not Open Standards, will we lose a full generation of choices and tools?
“It also gives Linden and IBM the lead in establishing a possible de facto standard for virtual worlds.
However, they have shown little enthusiasm for cooperating with other virtual world owners on standards to date and have become focused instead on the business opportunity.”
In fact, Linden Lab and IBM have been trying for the past year to get other virtual world creaators interested in interoperability. So far the response has been lukewarm, at best.
Here’s the press release from last year:
Posted by: Saijanai | July 9th, 2008 at 6:26 am | Report this commenthttp://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22428.wss
[…] this is going to be far more popular than the other virtual worlds - even after yesterday’s news about Second Life and IBM’s Metaverse connecting. Why? Lively is broswer based and, it seems […]
Posted by: EDITing in the Dark » Step Lively into Google’s Virtual World | July 9th, 2008 at 2:40 pm | Report this commentNice article I can’t wait to play second life today now !!!!!!
Oh and does anyone know where I can get a discounted computer magazine subscription?
Posted by: Max Westphal | July 9th, 2008 at 5:21 pm | Report this commentYa I use Magazine USA they provide a pretty good deal for computer magazines !!! Check them out here:
Posted by: Johnny Matar | July 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm | Report this commenthttp://www.magazinesusa.com/computing-magazines.cfm
[…] FT.com | Tech Blog | Second Life’s maiden voyage across the metaverse […]
Posted by: Daily Links 07/09/2008 | July 9th, 2008 at 6:42 pm | Report this commentI’ve predicted the advent of this day for the last three years. Awesome news. Bring on the future!
P2
Posted by: Phoenix Psaltery | July 11th, 2008 at 9:30 am | Report this commentteleporting to another world and getting there naked..? Terminator springs to mind…
Posted by: stu | July 11th, 2008 at 12:57 pm | Report this commentThis really is a significant development. depo been developing in Second Life mainly for business use for some time now, and the ability to have the public and private areas that this opens up is going to really move these platforms forward.
I don’t often say this - but well played IBM!
Posted by: Peter Dunkley | July 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am | Report this comment