Second Life's Master Plan

So, most of us are in awe by the metaphysical implications of the metaverse being ushered in by Second Life. The current Fortune has a decent overview, but the real juice comes here at the end of the piece. Note, this also dovetails beautifully with tomorrow's upcoming discussion of open source:

"Linden has taken another radical step: It announced that the software that residents use to view and navigate Second Life would become available for anyone to examine and modify. The aim is to speed up improvements. Eventually Linden intends to reveal the code for every aspect of Second Life...In effect, Linden hopes to control the standards for virtual worlds so that they become the equivalent of the HTTP and HTML standards that define the web."

Here's the clincher:

""We can recreate Google's business in this environment," Rosedale says, not to mention Network Solutions' web-address registration business and Paypal's online-payments system."

That's some strategic thinking. I'd be curious to see Vegas' odds. If only Linden were public...