3D environments are about to go mainstream because they’ll be embedded in Web sites, there will be 3D spaces without avatars, MMOs will be streamed like television shows. 3D is the next wave of Web development and it will integrate with augmented reality – mirror worlds, 3D product displays, etc. It will be irritating (think blinky banner ads) but it will also become profound as designers learn how to use 3D tools effectively.

The thing that Second Life always had going for it was content, which was facilitated by tools (tech), commerce and ownership. Content and creation then became the signaling mechanism for deep community.

But Second Life has done everything possible to put road blocks to content and the communities that emerge because of it.

Trying to find something? Break search.

Trying to bring a group together? Group chat and notices don’t work.

Trying to keep in touch with your students? Don’t send IMs, they might cap.

Trying to build something? Release a viewer that’s unusable by most serious content developers.

I still believe there’s a role for large-scale virtual world technology, whether using distributed architecture or centralized systems. I’m not so sure the Lab can dig itself out of the hole it’s increasingly finding itself in but I’m confident in the larger promise, although I tend to think it will come out of a large-scale game environment (think Dead Red Redemption on a global scale but with the ability to rez prims) than the current technology set.

Right now, in the wider space of social media – folks who use social media for professional or personal reasons – the most common reaction I get on Second Life is “I thought that closed down a long time ago.”

Avatar based, open-ended, user-generated immersive 3D environments for grown-ups are a big success… for a loyal niche of believers, and that’s about it.

Metaplace tried and failed, Google tried Lively and failed, Google runs Google Earth but nothing indicates they want to turn that into a virtual world.

Second Life is great for geeky meetings, for proto-typing, for education (how many of the immersed students actually stay after their assignments?), for people who want to live a fully immersed roleplaying second life, but it’s not going mainstream anytime soon – it’s one of those great tech-ideas which just don’t make it (in terms of going mainstream).

So Amazon won’t buy it, because even though they love to cater for the long tail, they are a mainstream company by now.

So, I said it. That’s what I, a proud resident of Second Life, think about it – and I hope I’m wrong about this, that it would be as simple as ‘solve the scalability problem and we go mainstream.’

Amazon is smart enough to see that SL is hopelessly broken primarily because LL’s management is hobbled by predatory retards who think that anybody else making a profit at something is somehow stealing from their bottom line.

Google also announced a storage-only service (like S3 but architecturally very different) but right now it’s only available to developers in the United States in a limited beta test.

Of course, Google already offers a ton of services on top of their cloud, and many SL residents already take advantage of those (e.g. Google Search, Blogger, AdSense, Gmail, Google Groups, Google Calendar, etc.)

I am still in amazement that “someone” hasn’t taken the next step in virtual shopping for real goods. I’ve been surfing endlessly trying to find a new coffee-maker and a new gas grill.

How cool it would be to go from a site, like Lowe’s or Amazon, with product details to being transformed to a virtual shopping area where I could talk live to others about what they liked or didn’t like about various products, instead of reading endless reviews that I’m not sure are written in earnest.

How cool would it be to shop in a virtual world where I spend so much time already working and socializing and shopping for virtual goods, to incorporate clicking inworld on RL products to purchase them after making my buying decision.

Mainstream… hurry up and catch up with us. We have needs to be met.

But I am think one of these days Google will launch its rumored Google Meetings videoconferencing tool (link above) integrated with Google Apps, and it will quickly become the leading application for collaborative business videoconferencing, displacing some similar applications of 3D virtual worlds.