2009 Predictions
January 2, 2009 forecast 3 Comments(( At the beginning of last year I made 10 predictions, then evaluated their accuracy at the end of the year. This year, I predict…
- There will be a major blow to freedom of expression in the Second Life World™
- One or more of LL’s products will undergo an abrupt price change, and there will be protests.
- Linden Lab will face a challenge regarding customer privacy. For example, perhaps it will be revealed that LL has provided server logs and chat logs to be used in an investigation or as evidence in a legal proceeding. Or, perhaps it will be revealed that a court has granted a wire tap on specific communications and activities in Second Life. Linden Lab will cooperate with authorities and not take any inordinate legal risks for the sake of their customer’s privacy.
- Perhaps as a result of this, someone will build automatic two-way text encryption into a third-party viewer, similar to pidgin-encrypt
- LL will announce that certain services are only available in the official Second Life viewer, and perhaps some authenticated third-party viewers. In particular, the abuse reporting tool will be restricted to prevent forged snapshots.
- The will be a change in the permissions system, perhaps to accommodate grid interoperability.
- There will be a welcome improvement to the offline message system.
- Someone will die.
Hmmm.. looks like only 8 this time. Maybe I’ll think of two more by tomorrow. Maybe not. Have a good 2009, everyone.
-Big Adz ))