Anyone who is familiar with Second Life at all has heard of Anshe Chung, who has accumulated more the US$1 million in SL assets and is, arguably, the most successful businessperson in SL. The news today is that she (well, her company) has sold a 10 percent stake in the company to a German venture capital company. The significance within the story, as far as I’m concerned, comes from a quote attributed to Chung’s husband and business partner, Guni Greenstein:
“Our business is based more and more on people and talent and less and less on a certain platform.”
The context: Adam Reuters in his article had just noted that Anshe Chung Studios had branched out to other virtual worlds including IMVU, There.com and Entropia.
He’s using “platform” differently than I do—when I think “platform” I think, by way of comparison, of “Internet,” whereas he is thinking of, for instance, “Internet Explorer.” But with that clarification, he is saying essentially what we in the SLPSTCC project have thought all along.
Second Life is the market leader in non-game MUVEs, it seems, the way Netscape was the leader in Web browsers, and because they show signs of having learned from the successes and failures of other companies, there is a good chance Second Life will remain the leader. But it bears repeating: we’re pursuing understanding the educational benefits of MUVEs.
