Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend a talk by Philip Rosedale CEO of Linden Lab spoking at the Managing Virtual Distance conference held by the Institute for International Research in Anaheim, California. He wasn’t there in person, but his presentation was given in Second Life, handled through Second Life’s voice system, and relayed to the live audience at the real life conference. Philip also noted this was the first time he had used Second Life and SLVoice for a presentation to a real life conference.

Rosedale presented his usual clear but visionary statement of how virtual worlds (particularly Second Life) have developed, and how he sees them developing in the future. In this respect his presentation was quite “standard Rosedale” and clearly tailored to a live audience who may not have had much in world experience. Reproducing the talk was limited by licensing agreements, but there is excellent coverage of the event here at www.metaversed.com.

At one point Philip used live music in Second Life as an example of how creatives and businesses can benefit from the low set up costs and overheads in Second Life. He explained how live musicians can play to around 100 ( optimistic ) people in each venue – much the same as a real venue. But they can jump instantly to new venue’s and have practically zero transportation costs.

The discussion went on to a moderated question and answer session, which unfortunately resulted in some good questions being ignored and some less revealing questions being answered. However I did manage to pass them into another Linden today.

Torley Linden, one time resident and community Second Life celebrity always seems to have time to discuss more esoteric social issues, so I headed over to his office hours. ( Incidentally here captured him under a custom “Watermelon Sky” in the Windlight first look which I created during his office hours when I should have been paying more attention! )

I asked Torley the same question I asked Philip. It’s an open ended discussion and way off the normal subject of this blog. But I think about these issues more and more :

Dizzy Banjo: in 20 years.. when the virtual world becomes as compelling as you envisage.. what do you think will happen to the social networks of society.. do you think virtual worlds will ever be able to convey the intricacies of REAL human contact ? whilst being incredibly positive in terms of sustainability and global innovation – are you concerned about the potential for isolation ?

Torley Linden: That’s pretty visionary stuff. I think a lot of what we’ll see will be a natural extension of today (and pretty predictable), whereas other parts will be more polar. I think some societies (groups of people) will abandon things like notions of privacy. Whereas others will become very adamant about their personal rights. I think if haptic technology is advanced and consumer-widespread by then, then “REAL human contact” becomes a less a question of “where” but “when”.
Dizzy Banjo: It has fundamental implications… which im not saying will be bad.. but just “different”..

Torley Linden: I believe it’s important to extend from the two main senses of online worlds today — sight and sound — into other senses.

Dizzy Banjo: For instance i think business happens “differently” in here..

Torley Linden: The vices we have today, human foibles, will be the same 20, 50, 100 years from now, expressed in different ways. It’s kind of like, we’re still people, we’re just using technology to communicate. I think, as we’ve seen through history, there’ll be a lot of bold words spoken, but there’ll also be people who go, “To hell with those words! I’ll make something great happen another way!”

Dizzy Banjo: yeh i think with these social tools.. things just happen differently.. in many ways there are bigger emotional extremes..if you consider a trajectory like “jennifer government”, combined with this trajectory of virtual societies, its mindboggling..

Torley Linden: Etymologically, this becomes even more profound as we realize how influential some previously “external” sources have been to mainstream culture… for example, the fringes of hip-hop, now a dominant force in the music industry. An important thing for me, is seeing what survives through the “novelty” phases and lasts for the longer-term… some people used to regard the Internet as a “fad”… we can see how backward-thinking they are in retrospect. I know a lot of press articles still regard Second Life as this crazily new-fangled thing; in some ways, it is. But in time, online worlds will become “normal” in a casual everyday way like how television sets in the home are.