Today was Day One of the first Virtual Worlds conference. Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale (pictured below) kicked off the agenda with some interesting words regarding the evolution of his thinking about virtual worlds.
At first, "Linden approached virtual worlds as a physics problem and didn't really think much about people." He was fascinated by the notion that within the confines of a computer lies infinite space and infinite possibility.
But today, Rosedale recognizes that, "the thing that is so powerful about virtual worlds isn't that they are 3D; it's that there are other people there [with you.] On the internet there aren't." In other words, it's not the technology. It's all the people (this was the key recurring theme of the day.)
Today, he believes that "virtual worlds will fundamentally change who we are as people." Virtual worlds can provide people with transformative experiences -- they will try things and do things in the real world because they've grown accustomed to the ease with which they can do those things in the virtual world. In essence, better Second Lives lead to better first lives.
And with this, Philip set the stage for a day of panels and keynotes that addressed virtual worlds as the next generation of digital community. I'll be slo-blogging my thoughts and highlighting key ideas over the next few days. If you want to read more right away, Mark Wallace and Adam Broitman have been live blogging the event -- please excuse Adam's typos. ;-)
