I have just stumbled across Warren Ellis' thoughts on Second Life entitled Second Life Sketches. They're an interesting read for this non-Second Lifer and have me thinking about test driving the linux client, though I suspect that my video card might not handle it.

Ellis touches on the problems that Second Life will face as it receives more attention as well as some of the exciting things happening. One interesting project is Terminus, which aims to create artificial life. He also muses over the price of land and just when the bottom might fall out of the market, noting that a number people buy land only to fill it with a bland imitation of IKEA life. I particularly like his final word on property ownership:

I have a month’s rental to go on my own mainland property, which I mostly use as a place to introduce people to the notion of exploring the mainland [..]. Since no-one’s about to donate me an island on which to create my own cult compound, I think I’ll probably give it up at the end of the month, and wander around Second Life like Caine in Kung Fu. Only without, you know, the kung fu.

Now the thought of starting a cult online sounds kind of cool. Perhaps I could start a business in Second Life selling in-game priesthoods and degrees? Although, someone's probably already beaten me to it.

And if you need still more convincing that Second Life is hitting tipping point, these stories are hosted at the Reuters Second Life News Center. The Reuters site provides graphs of the exchange rate between Linden Dollars and US Dollars and also shows how much money is chagning hands each day - a cool $1,251,595 in the past 24 hours, even more statistics are available from Linden Labs themselves.

As far as I'm concerned though, the artistic and philosophical possibilities of Second Life are far more interesting than graphs of exchange rates. That said a virtual economy is pretty interesting.... Anyway, I'm really enjoying Ellis' columns and they will have to do until I can afford a new video card. I guess I'm missing the gold rush.