Its a strange new world/craft fair

1st things 1st. Happy new year.

2nd things 2nd What is second life all about?
I didn't really know. So I took Linden Labs up on their kind offer of free beer last night and went to have a nose around their Brighton office. After about 2 hours I still only have an impression. Either SL is the cheap 3D universal interface that every one could use to interact/ do business with on line with or it is just a craft fair. That second option isn't how Lindens would recognise it and it isn't meant to be disparaging. There is a 3rd view held by some :- that SL is more along the lines of an open asylum that attracts a disproportionate number of people who need to express themselves in ways normal society would frown upon.

If second life is to scale Linden Labs must allow other organisations to build and run servers located around the globe. In fact Linden Labs themselves should probably give up running the majority of servers they currently do. This is a cost overhead they just don't need. Ownership of protocols and the and the ability to block access to any rogue server as the one and only sanction is all that is required. Probably only allowing legal entities other than individuals to own and run servers would be a useful raising of the bar. Oh and obviously people need a lot more hand holding before they will commit their time and energy to SL. I would say that the majority of the people I spoke to last night don't actually use SL beyond an initial foray.

On a more cheerful note having a poly pin of Harvey's best bitter was a good move and I scored a Linden Labs re-badged Rubick's cube. Also bumped into Iestyn Lloyd from Littleloud whose appearance on ch4 shows that at least someone did something useful last year even if it was just playing dead.