Second Life, and Maybe a Third or Fourth

"As the prevalence of online virtual communities continues to grow, Second Life finds itself at the nexus of some fascinating developments in the world of media and technology," says Catherine Smith, director of marketing with Linden Lab. "The number of newcomers to the space further establishes the potential of 3-D virtual platforms, and it's something that excites us here at Linden Lab."

Bain certainly isn't pessimistic about Second Life's future, competition or not, noting that audiences will always come together because of the social aspect.

"In those cases, the all-around experience is what people are passionate about, not the platform," he says, adding that "Second Life is secondary to the experience. I trust the user community to evolve into something works for them."

Bain says that the virtual space is moving so fast that it' hard to view one platform as having a distinct advantage over another.

"If this were a baseball game, I'd say that we're still in the first inning," Bain says. "It's still extremely early. I look for lots of great developments to happen to make the experience even richer. The stability and the scaling of the platform will keep going."