Google's Virtual World

It looks like Google may be launching their own virtual world by the end of this year. It will probably use the data from Google Earth, i.e. be a virtual replica of the real world. It will be interesting to see what Google does with it. Since it doesn't look like there will sword fighting any time soon, I probably won't abandon Second Life, but knowing Google they probably have some pretty cool stuff planned. At the same time, it appears that Linden Labs is working on opening up Second Life as much as possible:

"We imagine a future where Second Life is able grow beyond the borders of Linden Lab. We see regions running on open source, alternative simulators. We see web services that allow people to build mash-ups of Second Life and the Web. We see organizations being able to integrate their members and their members’ avatars. This is the vision of future Second Life Grid that we want to develop."

So it's possible we will see a future where the best parts of Google's new virtual world are integrated into Second Life.

Google is also going to announce on November 5 a new API that will be similar to Facebook's application API. Basically, web developers will be able to leverage social aspects of Google's tools such as Orkut and Google Talk on their own webpages. This is pretty huge, as it has the implication of turning the entire internet into a social network if the API is used extensively. The Google Talk API, for example, could be used to easily create an area in a webpage where everyone currently looking at that page could chat with each other. Imagine if this new social internet was completely accessible from and integrated into Google's virtual world. I think the next 5 years should be pretty interesting.

p.s.: Didn't Google try to buy Linden Labs earlier this year?