A somewhat pessimistic view from Information Week on the results so far of business investments in creating a presence in Second Life. One line that stood out for me was:
The design simulations are kludgy and represent the ultimate exercise in pointless boredom for users who want to indulge their ultimate fantasies, not decide between olive green and stainless steel for a new refrigerator
Having logged 30-40 hours in Second Life in the last few months I tend to agree with the ‘kludgy’ comment. It is really hard to design anything worth looking at in SL. While it’s true their are some ‘artists’ who can create incredible objects, it is just too hard for most people. So what is Linden Labs to do? I say open up. Give us an API or data format that we can write to to get all of the models created in MCAD and Arch CAD tools over the last 40 years to populate your virtual world with killer content. Maybe someone will come up with a better purpose specific modeler than the tools you have delivered already. Whatever happen, allowing data to get in and out of SL more easily will only help make the experienec richer – for both the user and the business trying to get more faithful representations of their products shown.
Second Life Opens For Business – Technology News by InformationWeek
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