It's a big day here at NXT as our first Commenter of the Week gets to cut loose. Jonathan batted consistently this week and got on base most of the time. He's Canadian, so he may not get that reference.

Feel his words:

A revolution is coming. Much like revolutions past, it will happen quickly and seemingly without warning, and only make real sense once analyzed by future historians. This revolution is the emerging significance of the Metaverse - the 3-D Internet, Web 3.d. It's what the Internet was destined to become; an immersive world where geography is irrelevant, information is omnipresent, and human interaction is as engaging as it is in the world we call home.

The current purveyors of this new world are a company called Linden Labs. Based in San Francisco, Linden Labs have been giving away their open-source masterpiece Second Life for several years. They are to the Metaverse, what AOL was to the Internet 12 years ago, when we paid by the minute and thought we were the bomb on Chathouse.com (still kicking after all these years!).

Although Second Life is built upon the technology of 3-D online games, there are no objectives in the world other than to enjoy yourself and find success in whatever you do. Citizens of Second Life walk the digital landscape as "avatars", often fantastically outfitted creatures with glowing eyes and furry tails, or in the case of my avatar (Jonathan Sturges) a fairly convincing replica of my awkward and lanky self. ( http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1183/1107916283_67ae342d7a.jpg )

Don't get me wrong, I'm in love with the physical world. I love to trail run, swim, party, watch live music, meet people, I love walking up Exchange Street on a hot day. I don't love driving 25 minutes to work, or filling up my tank with Gas-osaurus-whatever, or standing in line. Aside from occasional server crashes, the Metaverse has very few inconveniences, and relative to the high-octane rat race we live today, it has the environmental footprint of a field mouse.

Today I can make digital eye contact with my SL friends (my "cartoon friends" as my wife calls them) while speaking in real-time. Just the other day I coordinated the efforts of a Second Life photographer, a lovely avatar who I had contracted to photograph a high profile 3 member team of designers in front of one of their many digital stores, for a website I'm building. So "there" I am, standing on the same server as photographer Lili in Switzerland, and my clients Kim in DC, Peter in NY, and Serra in Wisconsin, all from the comfort of my laptop. Imagine for a moment a world where meeting face-to-face didn't require fossil fuels, travel time, or pants. 12 years ago you probably wouldn't have believed in Google Earth.

E-mail this entry to a friend