Glimpse of the SL future

Read past the stock market stuff about Interlibber Brautigan’s company salvaging Mind The Box and get to page 2 of this article for what I think is the first public mention of a NON-Linden Lab Second Life grid:

BNT [Brautigan’s company] plans on opening its own independent grid by end of summer with their own co-location facility in New Hampshire and will offer a plug-in for SL users that will allow them to jump from grid to grid in a teleport only a little longer than a normal teleport.

Members of the libsl team are on the staff and BNT will be using OpenSim on their own servers, which Brautigan plans to make “griddable” by end of summer. “Then all that is left is signing a license agreement with LL to allow users on our grid to access their SL money and inventory,” said Brautigan. “New Hampshire is a state that is free of sales and income taxes, so we expect many businesses seeking to escape possible taxation or regulation will find our grid a haven. BNT’s Extropia grid will become the Switzerland of the metaverse.”

Beyond that, it’s good to see someone with means taking the reins to market Second Life.  I pretty much agree with Brautigan’s points outlined below:

BNT will advertise to RL media to drive potential investors into SL, who can sign up via the firm’s Web site and drive new users directly to their estates. Brautigan projects usage of as much as 30,000 people per day. “Because we’re focusing on financial publications, those users will be high income users. Most of the growth has been among people with far less disposable income or means to bring money inworld,” said Brautigan. “We are seeking to reverse that trend. One reason for the current market slowdown in SL is that LL doesn’t really market much and most developers don’t market outside the SL media, which has caused a very incestuous situation of people chasing the same money around among the same people. We need to bring new blood and new capital into SL and it’s the responsibility of those of us with the biggest investments to participate in marketing SL.”

So we see the economically empowered Lords of SL taking matters into their own hands – running their own grids,  doing their own marketing.  Good for them.  It’s their risk – and their reward.  I just hope there is a place for the individual user – and the artist – in this new Second Life model.