Virtual Worlds, Collaboratively Built

Abstract

Even before they really existed, I deeply believed that virtual worlds would have a profound impact on the real world, ultimately affecting the lives of people worldwide, in much the same way that the World Wide Web itself has brought about a dramatic transformation in how we communicate. Now that Second Life—and more broadly, virtual worlds—have become at least "worthy of criticism,” I am all the more convinced that this will prove to be true. We will soon see virtual worlds expand from millions of active users to billions.