The Grid takes shape

There is a fascinating interview over at Dusan Writer's metaverse with Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red regarding immersive workspaces. Second Life in a box is selling itself to a business near you.

When I was a lad Catherine Linden used to do office hours. I liked Catherine, she was a marketing person who came across as a shoe shopper. I wonder what they did with her? I hope she's not buried in the basement! Anyway, later meetings with Catherine kept talking about "The Grid". Straight away I saw this as a different angle and a different direction. I still do, the Second Life world we all know and love is a different beast.

I find it interesting that Rivers Run Red aren't doing any work on what we call the main grid...they call it the main grid too. However their primary focus these days is behind closed doors. NDA signed closed doors too as they won't talk about it.

This brings me back to the 9th July where I noted on twitter: "There's no longevity in the Second Life main grid virtual world, the technology may last but the main grid is doomed."

I'm not quite as gloomy as I was then and I can't remember why I felt that gloomy back then but I do envisage Linden Lab being more interested in the immersive workspaces angle than they are in the main grid angle. I can see the main grid being passed around to willing third parties and having a tie in with evolving Second Life technology.  Alternatively Linden Lab could create subdivisions whereby a new company under the umbrella name of Linden Lab look after our world and they get on with this grid business of selling immersive workspaces type deals.

Where Linden Lab need to tread very carefully is with how many eggs they put in one basket. The deal with Rivers Run Red is a two way deal where they promote each other. That makes sense, but read the interview carefully, especially the part where Justin Bovington mentions that their clients don't care about what platform the solution is on and open sim still being in alpha. Linden Lab need to keep their technology ahead of the game.

Part of the problem with the main Second Life world that we inhabit is scaling. All that streaming, teleporting asset server issues, non delivery of items. These aren't really issues when it's on an intranet for business presentations, those load issues simply don't exist. This is the way forward for business but business will want more, they will want more interaction and this can be delivered if the scalability issues have a lid put on them. A few hundred people being connected instead of seventy six thousand will make quite a difference to performance and to progress.

This isn't something we as residents should fear, this is the point where I fire up some Blue Oyster Cult and play Don't fear the Reaper....... all our times have come, here but now they're gone ......where was I? Oh yes! It's not the end of the world as we know it. Think of it more of seeing a loved one getting a promotion, having to go and work long hours out of town, phoning you from a bar at 2am to tell you that the boss wants her to take special dictation and then you go and throw darts at her picture that you have pinned to the back of your bedroom door.

However sometimes she comes back, even without the need to engage in witchcraft (although engaging in warcraft can be therapeutic).

I think we all need to realise that although five years can seem to be a long term in technology, it really isn't. This is still a fledgling product with potential galore, it's all too easy to forget that but I really do feel we'll see a split in how the product develops. The Grid version and the Second Life world are targetting different people and different customers. This could be positive if it means Linden Lab see the entertainment and social networking value as being productive, maybe they'll eventually give us more groups! Hooray!