Is Second Life the next Internet?

Implications: The online world Second Life (SL) and the similar World of Warcraft both seem to indicate that the Internet is no longer just for websites. Even Google is rumored to be working on its own online world. So are these just other ways of showing more online ads or is this something new?

Analysis: Second Life is hard to explain: on the outside it seems almost silly: you create an avatar (digital representation of yourself that can look like anything you choose) and then with simple mouse commands you move your avatar around in a virtual world with virtual houses, virtual landscapes and lots of other avatars (virtual people).

But once you actually experience it (it is free and will run on any modern PC or Apple) you start to realize that there is a lot more to it. Sun Microsystems did a product launch in Second Life instead of doing it in the "normal" fashion. Regular old fashioned brick and mortar banks are opening up virtual branches in Second Life. And oh yes, the virtual second life currency is convertible into real money. One person in Germany last year was the first to make a real world living inside of second life by selling virtual houses.

Second Life even has virtual sweat shops were people from low wage countries spend hours and hours online while building virtual goods that can then be sold for virtual dollars that can then be converted to real dollars. In other words there is a whole new economy out there. But this economy crosses all regular country boundaries and cultural boundaries. (Even though recently Second Life decided to try and outlaw gambling inside of the virtual world in order to comply with US legislation (the SL HQ is in San Francisco after all).

So Second Life and other virtual online worlds are a new "thing" and some even call it the new Internet.