A Linden On Capital Hill
Published April 9th, 2008As reported by numerous sources (Reuters, SLNN, NWN), Phillip Rosendale and several others (Then CEO of Linden Lab) made a presentation before the House of Representatives on April 1st in regards to Second Life and its’ future. The presentation was essentially a primer about Second Life for Congress, Phillip presented a very well put together video showing how many public and non-profit organizations were using the Second Life platform.
A few of the senators had some “interesting” questions for the Linden Lab CEO, like Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) quoted from an old article about possible terrorist stagings in Second Life. This article, was very poorly researched as they didn’t even refer to the virtual world of Second Life correctly, calling it a web site, and when it first appeared it was essentially a laughing stock. Fortunately there were some more intelligent questions, and other speakers besides Mr. Rosendale as well.
It was clear, though certainly not unexpected, that some of these politicians were pushing their own agenda even in this simple briefing. But while this presentation may not seem terribly important to those of us already familiar with Second Life, it’s important to remember Linden Lab’s long term goal for Second Life. The client has become open source, and soon the Server will, already IBM is preparing to launch their own official offsite Second Life grid (For internal use).
Linden Lab wants Second Life to become the World Wide Web of the Metaverse, and them to become the ICANN of said Metaverse. This song and dance on capital hill is an important, if small step, in that direction…
And of course John Stewart and the Daily Show had to take a crack at it as well making a point to poke fun at the chosen avatar name of one of the speakers… And understandably so considering that person’s name, and it is unfortunate the name she chose for herself, though perhaps I’m not one to say. Still it was an interesting hearing and you can watch it in its’ entirety above. I’m just disappointed that the Daily Show decided to emulate Second Life for their skit, isn’t the actual Second Life crazy enough on its’ own?
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