The more astute among you will have noticed a new ad to the right of the posts: it's for the upcoming Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo, which runs October 10 and 11 in San Jose. All manner of industry leads will be there, with many of them speaking, including Adri Saarinen from Metaversatility; Corey Bridges from the Multiverse Network; Giff Constable from ESC; Edward Castronova; Jeska, Robin, and John Zdanowski from LL, and a bunch of other MMO players.

I plan on being there as well, so anyone in the area or already planning on going to this event, drop me a line and let's have our own mini-SLCC right there in SJ! For those of you planning on going but without your ticket yet can take advantage of this great discount code when registering online. The code is VIPATTENDEE, and it will save you 10% on the registration rate! You can check out more information at the conference website.

I'm excited; are you excited? I can't wait to meet representatives of MMOs that I've made fun of! If I don't return from this event, you all know why!

(Thanks, Tim!)

Mitch Wagner of InformationWeekly has written an article which poses the question "Are virtual Worlds really the Next Internet?" One chief proponent of the 'yes they are' theory is the article's other focus, Corey Bridges, co-founder of MDC Multiverse Network, perhaps most famous for its announcement to create a Firefly MMOG.

Bridges' main point appears to be that the current generation, growing up as it is playing World of Warcraft and enjoying their Second Lives, will come to think of a 3D Internet as the Next Thing simply because they expect that it will be. Given that a percentage of these users will likely go on to develop applications for such a platform virtually guarantees such a vision.

At the same time, take a look at the money and time that big companies like IBM and Cisco are investing in SL alone, and it seems pretty clear that we're headed toward the next wave of Internet browsing standards. VRML, anyone?