Thursday, April 22, 2010

Second Life Is Past the Hype

A lot of people I talk to seem to think that Second Life was a fad that has peaked and faded. Not true. The following posts show it to be doing very well:

Here are three from one of my favorite SL bloggers, Dusan Writer:

Air Force Plans to Use Second Life Giving recruits avatars in SL is a fascinating plan ...
Eduction In Virtual Worlds A listing of his blogs over the years on education in virtual worlds.
Virtual Worlds and the Military Amputee The Amputee Virtual Environment Support System (AVESS) is discussed.

And other sources, which I admit is hardly exhaustive of what's out there:

Healthcare education in SL Dozens of hospitals, medical schools and health foundations have staked out space in the online community Second Life, where participants can build their own virtual clinics and stage just about any training drill they can imagine.
Medicine in the Virtual World More resources about what is going on in SL that is healthcare related.
Rutgers University About to open its Second Life simulation.

The one aspect of using virtual worlds for handling education and business continues to be the need for high-end computing power to make the most of it. That issue continues to be addressed with more powerful PCs and an economy that forces manufacturers to make them available more cheaply than ever.