Linden Labs vs. Google : Victor takes the virtual marketplace

First: Thank you BumpTop. Your 3D desktop has recovered my desktop, a task previously unthinkable.  It's stable, and you guys rock.

Second: The migration back into a 3D desktop has reinvigorated a perception I've had on the futures of the virtual environments by Linden Labs and Google. It's no secret that I've wondered about Google's potential for SketchUp, but is that far enough? Is it possible that Google Earth is the real competitor to Second Life?

Hugh may be saying it best: 

Walk with me here - Linden Labs has combined the perks of a social chat room with a  marketplace.  Throw a 3-dimensional GUI over this, and that's it. Not much different than your Apple store and iPhone interface, except that you have cute little avatars (well, not that cute) and less control on quality environments.

So, what if you had the following acquisitions: A) a powerful, user friendly 3D modeling application;  a foray (failed, but still a foray nonetheless - RIP Lively!) into an online 3D engine; a powerful, global-based database & map/3D graphic engine; GPS synchronization; a social network/IM stream; an open-source mobile phone OS and handset(s); and finally, a powerful search and advertising/marketing network.

LL, be afraid.

This isn't to say that Google has all of the pieces, but Google has all the pieces. Sony may be able to bring a variation of this to the PS3, but they are landlocked to the console. Apple is missing the advertising connection.  Microsoft isn't even in the same neighborhood (open source? whazzat?).

So how do these pieces go together? There is not much difference if someone is creating something for the web or modeling for real-world architecture (I'm still waiting for Google SketchUp to take on Autodesk, but I've vented on that enough for now...). An intuitive modeler is an enabler, and being able to port to Google Earth is a gateway drug.

Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash speaks of a world where there is relevance between physical and virtual locations. Anyone with Google Maps on your iPhone know of the surrealism of being able to always know where you are, and entering into the virtual based on the physical brings a parallelism unprecedented in 3D environments. Discovering new worlds or landholding your real estate in both worlds gives the ability to sync retail brick and mortar locations with their online presences. 

Now distribute this to your mobile phones. Virtual searches syncronized with physical products. Tracking search and purchase over a distributed network on PC and mobile. VR synced to the physical, yet the parallel with the truly virtual. Advertising pushed to your phone through GPS, driven from the VR parallel, and vice versa. 

Combine this with attributal building information, searchable destinations, or even being able to recombine and build your own cities based on search criteria. Market data beware, you can have user data at an entirely different scale. People could build and share their own virtual 'cities', pulling people to search and build their networks with each other.

Unimaginable, no?