News of Linden Lab and IBM collaborating on virtual world interoperability was released last week, and the consensus isn't all positive. Questions are being raised not only about the technical hurdles and actual market demand, but whether or not Linden Lab should be the ones to handle standards definition in the first place.
It all began in a closed-door meeting at Virtual Worlds 2007. While there were a large number of companies in attendance, the official press release lists just two, Linden Lab and IBM, as working on any kind of official project. Indeed you would have to wonder why the day after a large meeting of minds among virtual worlds stake holders, two of the players attempt to deliver a fait acompli to the public. They plan on creating standards for "Universal" Avatars, Security-rich Transactions, and generally support the notion that an Internet user should be able to flip between worlds like they do between websites.
Many feel this may not be possible. John Lopez commented on Metaversed recently about his experiences trying to make it possible for an avatar to move from one MUD to another. In his case, incompatible components had to be stripped from the account until very little was left. "By the time you distilled things down to the lowest common denominator," he said, "you were happy that your name and description survived the trip." This was an example from a text-only world ("MUD" stands for "Multi-User Dungeon") - how much more difficult might this be when trying to convert 3D graphics and scripted objects?
Raph Koster, CEO of Areae, was in attendance at the original meeting and had concerns of his own. No real market research has been done, which might mean that even if these interoperability standards were functional, they might not be something consumers want in the first place. Most of what was being proposed was based on assumptions that weren't necessarily sound or agreed upon, not the least of which was the nature of identity: "Much time was spent on discussing things like a federated identity system that can cut across world operators, something which may actually be illegal in Europe. Several folks seemed to come in with the assumption that avatar = identity = user."
Commenters on Raph's blog echoed these sentiments, and many were concerned that defining standards based on today's technology would be a mistake. "Can you imagine the web experience of today if someone had decided to require universal compatibility based on the screen sizes and color palettes typically available on, say, mid-range 1995 laptops?" said Kevin Bjorke. In response Richard Bartle made a disturbing comparison: "I don’t have to imagine it, I saw what happened when WAP came out based on a lowest-common- denominator phone spec."
For many Second Life businesses, however, the idea of Linden Lab defining a standard may be the deal breaker. "[...] when LL starts using industry-standard 3D formats, I'll start to take these initiatives at face value. Prims and dodgy sculpties are actually de-evolution for serious content creators who have been around a while." commented drOffset at Metaversed. While they don't seem interested in supporting other's standards, their own seem ill-defined at best and are rarely publicly documented. If it turns out that interoperability standards are possible, if consumers do indeed want them, and if they're defined to be flexible enough for future technologies, we still have to ask: is Linden Lab really the company to define them?
Yesterday's Metanomics event was bigger than ever, boasting a full sim as usual, a larger group in the SAP-hosted overflow site, and an audience spanning not just Second Life but avatars in Activeworlds, web surfers at the SLCN.tv website, and a live audience at Cornell University. A full gallery of photos of the event taken from inside Second Life can be found 
Today at 12pm PST IBM, Cornell University and Metaversed.com will be staging a trans world, tri-reality event in 4 seperate locations, two of which will be 3D virtual world platforms glued together by virtual camera crews and IP telephony. A packed Metaversed Island in Second Life will interface with IBM's ActiveWorlds platform via Skype, inworld video and streaming web, as Prof. Robert Bloomfield speaks in front of a real life audience in Cornell's Sage Hall with Sandra Kearney, IBM's Director for 3D Internet about the companies vision for the Metaverse. 
IBM's internship program Extreme Blue turned out a proof-of-concept for 
IBM, who already have literally thousands of employees engaged in the virtual world of 
IBM launched 