Real Life or Second Life

Second life

Several science fiction authors have predicted a world where humans will live as simulations. An illusion of a real world. All thou it was like living in another dimension, people were conscious of the fact that the world in question was not theirs. Since the first games emerged from the software industry, avatars were used as they obeyed to the player’s command. During all those years the graphic improuved as well as the interaction of the player. Virtual worlds were created to perfection.

Today there are two kinds of virtual worlds:

Massively Multiplayer online role-playing games

Massively Multiplayer online real life games

The internet evolutions has permitted players to join their games from all over the world simultaniously. The first kind of virtual worlds are games, where the player has a definite role an has to obey the game rules. The second type of virtual world has no rules whatsover and there is no goal attached to the game, it provides the condition to players as on the real life. VW such as Second life gives the users the opportunity to be part of its economy, avatars can work and do business, contribute to its environment by creating tools,clothes, buildings, buy real estate. There is even an exchange between real life money and second life money. Companies were quick to show interest in this new economy due to the fact that they were low to accept innovative economic structures such as Web 2.0 technology. Companies have their own advertisement, stores such as Apple or Nike have they own stores own second life where users can view the latest products. Selection agencies have already used this 3D platform in order to organize recruitment fairs or even selection.

Several scholars critize this new form of economic structure. They argue that Virtual worlds does not have many inhabitants, also people coming on second life, very few of them contribute to its economy. Also due to its high graphics only the latest computers can provide a user an adequate 3D sensation.

But on my opinion second life is just a pioneering site were the first real life simulation will be created. the whole internet will be a 3D simulation and companies must contribute to its development will be part of a future elite.

Besides Second life you have other Virtual worlds such as :

• Second Life
• Active Worlds
• Galaxiki
• Google Lively
• There
• Moove
• Kaneva
• Moodus

For others see page with list of online virtual worlds

In the future more virtual worlds will be created, portals are going to provide users jumps between one world to another. Sales online will grow on this 3D worlds, people will buy practically anything through this 3D worlds and exchange rates will provide an new kind of economic structure. Imagine a Facebook with  170 million inhabitants on a virtual world?

Moondus

Enter the Super Network

Facebook on Second life link your real friends and your virtual friends

Even the best Science fiction novels could not predict the future of humanity, interconnected as they are today.

The future of Social networking provides us plenty of surprises; what about talking to your friends online, while you are viewing your banking movements ! Imagine your are calling someone on Netlog via Skype and chatting with someone on Linkedin and Facebook simultaneously while you are working on Twitter and Xing or on Viadeo sharing files on Huddle or Weplus ! All that on the same network, a super network using 3D graphics such as second life, pc or mobile with portals through different networks interconnected for one purpose; to  serve you !

This is not far from the truth, nowadays the online gaming industry has provided some interconnection between games, in order to switch between games bringing over your friends.  Social networks are now entering into a mature faze, where they are monetizing their applications.

Only the biggest players will emerge from the crowd. This means that over hundreds of social networks, only a few will remain online to provide the user of all its necessity. Already today you can see some kind of a collaboration between social networks that allow users to add API’s from any network. In the future all networks are going to be merged into one network with all kinds of applications, from your office working station to a playground. The user will connect to the network and do everything it does both in the real life as virtual.

Second life is doing some steps towards collaboration with social networking sites such as Twitter, where you can connect in order to keep in touch with your projects. More and more applications will be added into the virtual world of second life.  You will be on second life to visit shops online, buy clothes on virtual ebay, playing games, network with your friends online , through a portal that gets you to Facebook 3D on your mobile, seek business opportunities through Linkedin 3D or find a job on Secondlife  Careerbuilders Portal. Another next level of web 3.0 application will be that people will share documents on 3D level through online platforms, working on their virtual office.

The world is changing tremendously, the economy is transforming towards a global networking collaboration, modifying to a complete new angle of the old hierarchical model of the Twentieth Century !

The changing in the economy is radical, more and more open source software’s are gaining notoriety. The way we think about an economic model of profits based on demand is changing drastically.

In order to understand the economic changes we must overview what was the economic model till now:

You invent a product, you sell the product with a profit margin in order to compensate the costs of production, use some marketing and sales and sell the product. Build a company with a capital that is based on bank loans, stock shares and sales revenues.

A simple product has a value on the market.  The problem is that millions of people entered the global market with little purchase power.  Now Both companies and consumers want to pay a low price to acquire a product ! In order to do that, you need to lower the costs of production. Previously companies closed their plants in their developed countries to move and rebuild them in the developing countries, but this was just postponing the problem. After the internet bubble in 2001  services and software’s were suddenly available for low prices or even for free on the market due to open source development.  Companies such as Microsoft suffered from this change.  It became known as the Web 2.0 economy “share, develop, collaborate, free”.

Companies need to accept the fact that they can lower the price of products such as low cost flights.

On the other hand consumers want to have quality from their products, the only way you can do that is to monetize the new web 2.0 economy.

The next step will be the collaboration between all networks, providing both quality of products and services for a low price.

Now after that the next step will be something similar to the matrix simulated world where people plug themselves into it, working and living into a virtual real world where it will be difficult to tell the difference between the real and the simulation ! I hope this time we will be conscious of the fact that it is still a virtual world !

Snapshot from facebook link on secondlife