Google moves into virtual worlds
Future Boy: Google moves into virtual worlds - May. 12, 2006
Online virtual worlds are a hot topic, as gamers spend more and more time playing online and virtual real estate turns into a real market. Now Google (Research) is getting into the business — and if its plans come to fruition, the virtual world will never be the same. In fact, it may look more like the world we know than futurists ever imagined.“I would expect to see someone using Google Earth as a virtual social space by the end of the year,” says Jerry Paffendorf, research director of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, a futurist organization.
…Google Earth is the most likely candidate to become a metaverse. Just add avatars, they say, and the possibilities are endless. …
There are, in short, many more opportunities in a virtual version of the real world than in an entirely fantastical world like Second Life — or indeed Stephenson’s original vision of the metaverse.
You write that “There are, in short, many more opportunities in a virtual version of the real world than in an entirely fantastical world like Second Life…”
Oh? In Second Life, one *can* create replicas of real world places (e.g. the Dublin sim), but I don’t think the Google Earth folks like it when someone tries to add new fantasy place to the Earth.
Hmmm, I’m not sure they’d agree Troy. Already you can place a SketchUp model in GoogleEarth, but it’s only visible to you. I’m sure they won’t mind selling you ad space on the real earth that links to the KML file of your fantasy version of that location. Also that Google is working on making the platform generic seems to support this type of thing - see http://www.google.com/mars/about.html#earth
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