[...] other Metasphere news, Raph Koster asks, “Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — [...]

[...] Of course, there are others who disagree and still others who see many of these MMOs as just the latest evolution of AOL. [...]

For those of you who are curious, here’s the punchline in advance: while reading through the info below, change 1995 to 2006, substitute WoW for AOL, and substitute Multiverse for Netscape, and you’ll see what we think about the remarkable similarities that you all have rightly noted:

ONLINE “WORLDS” IN 1995:

* Few big competitors

– AOL: 5Million subcribers @ about $15-$20/month

– CompuServe, Prodigy, etc.

* Expensive to build and launch

– Each based on proprietary technology

– Exclusive content

* No synergy between worlds

– No shared communication

– No shared interaction areas

* Significant friction for new users

– Separate installs

– Separate billing registrations

– Arbitrarily different user interfaces

Then along comes the Netscape platform, bringing or at least enabling these features:

NETSCAPE PLATFORM IN 1995
* Scalable, customizable platform (especially servers)

* Free, easy-to-use tools

* Content standards — HTML, JPG, etc.

* Free universal client — the browser

This platform led to the mainstreaming of the World Wide Web, which, as everyone has noted, changed everything. Suddenly all the stuff below became economically feasible.

WORLD WIDE WEB
* Startups, not existing monolithic companies, drive innovation

- Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Google

* New forms of content

- Targeted or niche content

- Social networks (mySpace, et al)

- User-created content (blogs, podcasts)

* New business models

- Advertising

- Sponsorships

- Commerce transactions

So just to tie this back on-topic, I think it’s going to be a case where a virtual-world development platform makes it economically feasible for people to really kick forward the state of the art.

–Corey (Exec Producer, Multiverse)

[...] WoW or SL? [...]

[...] In other Metasphere news, Raph Koster asks, “Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — are more like AOL circa 1992 than they are like the web today?”. [...]

[...] (Raph also pointed out this quote in a blog entry.) [...]

Tho have to agree, some games are more AOL than others.

WoW or SL… my money’s on the ‘something else’ option.

Then people would be able to help them grow as they wished. Of course, it’s kinda non-refundable. =P

Like the Web, this can only be achieved by decentralising the virtual worlds. Trucegore reinforces this view, pointing out how difficult it is, politically and technically, to centrally manage user submissions. Imagine how drab the Web would be if all content on it were vetted and managed by a single entity!

It’s also important when using a “90%/10%” craptasticy rule to bear in mind that different audiences have a different idea of “crap.” MySpace is a perfect example. To me, more like 99.9% of MySpace pages are crap. However, as more people I know start using MySpace, my own interest in pages there grows, and more of those pages become relevant to me.

MySpace is a fractal reiteration of the greater Web. Individuals create content, link to other content they like, and after you discover an entry point by word of mouth or other means, you can create your own network of interesting (to you) pages. There is a very low entry cost to adding your own content to the mix.

Virtual worlds are not like that yet. Second Life provides a vastly lower entry cost to adding content than ever before, but in my opinion, it’s still not low enough: the starting handkerchief of land is both hard to connect to and too small for interesting results. It’s the virtual world equivalent of one page containing no more than 5kb of text and images.

Also compare the wealth and variety of text-based virtual worlds compared to graphical virtual worlds. We have the tools available right now for end users to be creating graphical environments — look at FPS maps, Second Life’s content creation tools, and similar devices — but we don’t have the tools to be hosting graphical virtual worlds ourselves.

The “something else” in my view will be the system that lets users easily create their own virtual worlds, and share those worlds with their friends. From there will grow a new Web, whose userbase will rival the userbase of the greatest virtual space currently known — the World Wide Web.

Today's Virtual Worlds Are Yesterday's AOL

Raph Koster asks "Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — are more like AOL circa 1992 than they are like the web today?" Well, Raph, since you asked… Feb. 12, 2005: "Second…