Predictions for 2011

Firstly, I wonder whether a die has been cast for SL following appointment of a gamer as CEO and the opening of SL to 16+ teens. Is this year about entertainment, about social? Phillip promised "fast, easy, fun" and, while progress has been made, I guess it's the new CEO Rod Humble who will hopefully deliver (good to see him on Twitter already). Delivery will mean more residents, more participatory events (including perhaps a pay-for web option), further evolution of breedable animals and games like Tiny Empires and Combat Cards. Some have speculated that gambling may reappear.

None of this precludes educational use of SL but it does make it more tangential and SL in particular a harder sell. That said, LL hasn't completely ditched edu as it continues to sponsor VWBPE, the SLED list and the edu wiki. At the same time, however, there will be increasing pressure on educators to bring virtual world activities into the mainstream and, in times of budget cutbacks in the UK, to demonstrate cost-effectiveness, including revenue generation. OpenSim will look increasingly attractive when the next version with web-on-a-prim and mesh support appears though stability and availability of content may still be a challenge at times.

In that light I offer the following very tentative predictions:

1. Region concurrency will increase to 150 in SL and Intel will further develop their tech that allows 500-1000 avatars on an OpenSim megaregion. Global SL concurrency will start to trend upwards again but stay short of 100,000 (it's about 65-70K at the moment according to Tateru Nino).

2. More inworld advertising and advertising-supported web viewer options (already more prominent in inworld search). More revenue generating activity on edu sims that pay full tier.

3. Increased gamification in SL and better support for mobile use on iPad and Android, including low-fi graphics. Functional Kinect interfaces will appear but have only niche edu applications at first.

4. Resumption of interest in use of SL and OpenSim for edu marketing purposes, student recruitment, schools liaison, etc.

5. Mesh will arrive in SL in February and OpenSim 2-3 months later (as far as the Diva Distro is concerned) but have limited impact initially except in niche areas where mesh content is readily sourced.

6. Educators using OpenSim will become major users of the HyperGrid. The corollary is that they will favour hosting solutions that are HG-enabled and that better HG directories will appear.

7. There will be increased use of OER repositories for dissemination of virtual world content created outside SL.

8. Most VW edu users will continue to explore a multi-location strategy, using hosts best suited to particular purposes, e.g. high concurrency vs low-cost student building.

9. Sim-on-a-stick will find new uses, e.g. for pre-event orientation, textbook supplements.

10. Educators will be involved in maintaining the SL edu wiki.