NY Times on Second Life, Outs Prok

"A Virtual World but Real Money", Richard Siklos, NY Times, October 19, 2006.

NY Times does a large article on Second Life, which just passed the 1M registrations mark. Nothing you don't already know if you follow the space, but here's a nice thought that we come across more and more often:

"The sudden rush of real companies into so-called virtual worlds mirrors the evolution of the Internet itself, which moved beyond an educational and research network in the 1990’s to become a commercial proposition — but not without complaints from some quarters that the medium’s purity would be lost."

Then there's a discussion of the new concern that real companies' expansion into SL is akin to globalism in the RL. The article quotes Prokofy Neva and a reply by Philip Rosedale:

Prokofy: "The next phase will be they try to compete with other domestic products — the people who made sneakers in the world are now in danger of being crushed by Adidas."

"Mr. Rosedale says such concerns are overstated, because there are no advantages from economies of scale for big corporations in Second Life, and people can avoid places like Nissan Island as easily as they can avoid going to Nissan’s Web site. There is no limit to what can be built in Second Life, just as there is no limit to how many Web sites populate the Internet."

Speaking of Prokofy Neva, the article has his (well, hers) real name and picture.