Fascinating Dialog About the Future of Virtual Worlds from User's Perspectives

I came across two blog posts that started a very interesting discussion.  The first post, from Mitch Wagner on Copper Robot, was called “Why I hardly ever go on Second Life anymore,” discussing, well, why he doesn’t go on Second Life any more.  One of the main reasons is the amount of time it takes to sit down at a computer and log in and then get involved in this or that conversation, which is substantially more time consuming than using popular social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.  Then, in response to Mitch’s post, John “Pathfinder” Lester posted “Virtual World Endgame: Collapsing the Metaphor,” arguing that of course Second Life is more time consuming, but that’s its key advantage, in that it forces people to have more meaningful conversations and relationships because of that mutual investment.  He makes a good point.  Just because Facebook and Twitter are faster doesn’t make them better.  I thought that the discussion and comments on each page were really quite interesting.  Check them out and let me know what you think.  Who is right?

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