The 3D Web Will Rapidly Be the Dominant Thing and Everyone Will Have an Avatar

Philip Rosedale? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: The technology needed to implement virtual reality (VR) has been under development for decades. The company Linden Lab launched a popular virtual world called “Second Life” (SL) in 2003. The avatar of each user could move though a wide variety of 3D digital environments and interact with digital objects and other avatars.

Yet, this virtual world differed from immersive VR because the imagery was displayed via conventional screens and not via VR goggles. The founder of “Second Life” was convinced that soon everyone would have an avatar, and virtual worlds would surpass the web to become dominant. Would you please help me to find a citation for his comments?

Quote Investigator: In 2007 “The Guardian” newspaper of London published “Today Second Life, Tomorrow the World” which contained an interview with Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab and “Second Life”. He believed that once people had learned how to use “Second Life” it would become a preferred realm for communication and collaboration. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:^[1]2007 May 17, The Guardian, Today Second Life, tomorrow the world (Interview conducted by Kate Bulkley of Philip Rosedale, the founder of the virtual world Second Life), Quote Page 5, London, England. … Continue reading

The big problem is that it takes a long time to figure out how to do things in SL. Once you get over that, I think SL is a smoother road than the web itself, so taking that average of the four hours it takes now for people to understand SL down to 40 minutes will move us from 10% retention of users to more than 50% and then the 3D web will rapidly be the dominant thing and everyone will have an avatar.

Below is one additional citation and the conclusion.

In 2021 “Time” magazine published a piece titled “6 Lessons on the Future of the Metaverse From the Creator of Second Life” which referred to the quotation:^[2]Website: Time, Article title: 6 Lessons on the Future of the Metaverse From the Creator of Second Life, Article author: Andrew R. Chow, Date on website: November 26, 2021, Note: A version of this … Continue reading

In 2007, Second Life founder Philip Rosedale made a bold proclamation: “The 3D web will rapidly be the dominant thing and everyone will have an avatar.” Considering the success of his creation, it wasn’t an altogether far-fetched idea. Second Life—a virtual world in which participants can explore fantastical landscapes and build their own mansions, forests and spaceships—was reaching the crest of its popularity, with hundreds of thousands of active residents and a self-reported $500 million in GDP.

In conclusion, Philip Rosedale deserves credit for the comments he made in 2007. His remark was conditional. He thought the 3D web would dominate, but only after the time needed to understand “Second Life” was reduced substantially to 40 minutes from four hours. Familiarity with virtual worlds and VR has increased over the years.