Michael L. on the immersive web: "We need a open-standard, open-source immersive environment alternative. It has to be federated or P2P to deal with resource needs (as well as to prevent undue centralization). And it has to have an upgrade path that doesn't mean starting from scratch every 2 years."

While I don't feel that this is inevitable or even a good thing, I do think there is some momentum towards developments in this area. I've found myself mentionning ideas along these lines in my lectures recently. For example, the idea of people paying 1$ to buy a virtual iPod for their virtual characters (or Apple suing someone who tries to do something similar). How about a private, realworld U2 concert shown only in virtual space? Would your avatar have to wait in line to get in?

I'm not an MMORPG player, but I find the topic interesting. Expect to see more here on the subject in future posts.