Seeing the Web with Others in Second Life

On January 23, Reuters Second Life Bureau Chief Adam Pasick was at the World Economic Forum and interviewed Philip Rosedale, the CEO of Linden Lab (makers of Second Life).

I thought the most interesting part was when Philip talked about Linden Lab’s plans to enable viewing of websites inside Second Life. (You can already view websites in the SL client, but only you can see them—this would be websites that everyone around you in the world can see, like on a screen that someone built inworld.) Here’s the relevant part of the interview, which began in response to a question about what Linden Lab is doing to keep Second Life good for entrepreneurs:

Philip:  …Getting the Web to work really well in Second Life:  it feels to me like there are a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities around Web-enabled content in the world.  That obviously doesn’t work yet, but we’re working on it.

Adam:  So, yeah, I mean, that’s one of those things that’s been just out of reach for a while now.

Philip:  I know, like Havok 4 [the new physics engine].

Adam:  Would you care to announce a date [when you] are … pretty confident that’ll be the case?

[Dramatic pause while Philip chooses his words carefully…]

Philip:  Well,  I’d say in the next couple of months, you’re going to see us moving that way.

Adam:  Moving or arriving?

Philip:  I’m not going to say “released on the Main Grid” yet.

Adam:  Ok

Phlip:  But we are, we are very close to having HTML working  in a way that I think is going to be compelling for everybody, as a first release.

Adam:  Allright, so shall we say May 1?  Is that a couple months?

[Another long dramatic pause…]

Philip:  You’ll probably see us with with something out there by May 1.

Adam:  May 1, [you’ll] have something in beta.

Philip:  Yeah

Adam:  Alright, you guys heard it here first!