Predictions for 2009

1. A repeat of last year's - concurrency will regularly crack 100,000 by the end of the year. Sadly, if Second Life followed Moore's Law it should crack a much higher number, but let's go for 100,000.


2. Second Life will not get a serious competitor. Home will fall over on sex and teenagers, Wonderland won't be, Small Worlds will live up to the first part of its name, and for all its faults Second Life will prove to have the magic mix that makes it continue. OpenSim will prove to be a flash in the pan as grids multiply and then implode.


3. The various alternative viewers: Imprudence, Cool Viewer, On Rez etc. will gradually take more and more of the connections until they are (at least en masse) accounting for more than 50% of the log-ins. Proof of this will require Meta Linden to start producing the figures for the different viewers used, which she has promised to do but not yet delivered on.


4. M Linden will stop producing such management BS and start producing at least semi-SMART targets in his sermons regular blog updates. Less "we are working on improving stablity, wow isn't Second Life cool" and more "We will reduce the crash rate to under 10% by July 2009" and less "We will make the first hour experience better" and more "We will improve retention of new users so that we retain at least 25% of new users for at least one month."


5. We will see more big-wigs following M, T, FJ etc. into initial Linden status, but we will see at least one of the big three "move on" by the end of the year. 75% chance this move is not entirely voluntary.


6. Educators will continue to use Second Life and expand their presence. They will, in part, flirt with Wonderland, OpenSim etc. but will mostly come back and more educators will come in too.


7. Big business will start, in significant numbers, to work out how to use Second Life, and will expand their presence. This could well be a mix of advertising campaigns, long term activities (or both in combination as Coke managed), so they won't all stay, but more than half of those that come short term will come and have successful activities and so come back, either long term or short term for another activity.


8. Something will crack on the teen grid and access - this might not manifest directly in Second Life this year, because I think the change will come in response to someone challenging the law in court. Whilst I wholly agree we need a system to keep children and paedophiles apart and laws to protect the children, an 18 year old, who turned 18 yesterday dating a 17 year old who turns 18 tomorrow and is in the same class is NOT breaking the law. Having the pair of them in an educational environment together is not going to turn them into law breakers, even if, OMG, they can do cyber sex and see pixels of each other in skimpy costumes. Face it, they can see the real thing if they're smart enough to work out how to get time away from parents etc. Or do you believe teenagers aren't motivated strongly by sex?


9. One of Cory or Phillip will return to front and centre at Linden Lab.


10. The credit crunch/recession/economic downturn will initially dent virtual worlds usage, then people will start to realise meetings in Second Life are cheaper, faster and often at least as useful as face-to-face meetings and it will pick up. It is possible this will also be driven by green taxes as the US tries to catch up with the rest of the world.

Marks in about 364 days!
Oh, and despite it's advertising campaign The Spirit will not be the best film of the year - I realise the quotes are coming from the US, but for a film that's due to be released in the UK on l^st January the tag line "Critics are already saying it's the best film of the year" is just a tad boastful!