Taken directly from Reuters Posting.
Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life) chairman Mitch Kapor on Friday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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- Today revenues: mostly land; minor from exchange (selling Linden $, and adds)
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- Future revenues: servers will be out there (“that is the only way we can get to 100,000,000 servers”)
- Virtual Worlds is really a disruptive model.
The $100 billion opportunityIf you look at the history of disruptive technology platforms, like the PC, like the Internet itself, it appears that Second Life, or more properly virtual worlds, are going through that same type of explosive growth that happens when you have a very open platform, in which the barriers to entry and participation are low, in which there’s a lot of entrepreneurial incentive, and also a lot of idealism. And when you make the system open the way it is, with the open source client and more opening to come, people will invent fabulous applications of things to do.
Other hints (I have actually listened) from the movie (which is really his voice + SL animation)
- Linden is working on voice (avatars talking to each other);
- Linden is working on “limits to sims” (I hear this as more prims.. per land… or maybe this is what I want to hear? ah ah)
- “It will take 15 years…”
- Second Life as a browser.
- People connecting their own servers… this is the long term road map.
- The economy will change — but there will be a lot of advance notice.
- SL is riding a big wave of hype — but there is also a lot of substance of creativity.
- Linden needs to be behind the scenes — much as in the internet.