• Business Week, Monday, April 16, 2007 10:45 AM

Imagine a virtual "metaverse" where people are represented by avatars that can interact with one another and build anything from businesses to buildings. Oh wait, it's already a reality. But the greater question is, do massively multiplayer online games like Second Life and There represent the future of the Web browser? Will avatars represent our doings online as we conduct research, buy products or even go to work?

It's certainly a possibility, writes BW but you can definitely count on the future being "slicker, more realistic and more interactive and social than anything we experience today through the Web browser." Indeed, sociologist Bob Moore, who studies virtual worlds, believes three-dimensional worlds will be the "pervasive interfaces for the Internet."

The Web of the future will not only look different, but function differently, too. Right now, we scour the Web for information, absorbing content from 2D Web pages or video from embedded video players, but virtual worlds could give way to a richer virtual life where we engage in (former) real-world activities like family reunions, shopping trips with friends, or stock trading.

Online interaction (read: social networking) would also change in these "inherently social settings." As Linden Lab's Joe Miller says, "You go up to an avatar, and you know there's a real person on the other end."

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