Couldn’t agree more. If have to have a license fee, I’d rather it’s spent on this. I’m duly chastened.

I think I’d debate the point about communication a little more though. Whilst SL and others obviously provide a method for folks to communicate, it’s not immediately obvious to me that this is more compelling than many other methods that exist (phone, email, IM, post, or good old-faishoned chatting in person). I guess maybe that’s where we might have to agree to disagree. I’m therefore looking for a bit more from virtual worlds - something built on top, in the same way as Amazon took the infrastructure of the web and built a business model on it. I think that app is yet to appear.

I think the world by itself could work for kids, though. Kids have an exploratory nature at heart, and the virtual world can provide that very easily. Kids will work round any shortcomings in interaction more readily (although it’s not immediately obvious how that interaction will occur if it is to be kid-friendly). I’m a bit concerned about kids spending more time in virtual worlds than is healthy - to be fair, though, that’s no different from many other media that have been unfairly blamed in the same way (TV, computer games, etc.).

Just my thoughts - keep up the good work, it’s good to hear what you folks are doing in SL.

The Public Purposes of the BBC are as follows?
(a)
sustaining citizenship and civil society;
(b)
promoting education and learning;
(c)
stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
etc….
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.
.
(f ) in promoting its other purposes, helping to deliver to the public the
benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in
addition, taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.

The killer app does not have to be running in a metaverse. The connection of people in the environment at all ages and levels IS the killer app. IMHO :-)

I agree that concerns about who is doing what need to be addressed. However it is easier to chaparone and baby sit within a metaverse environment. Though it is a thorny issue and one I know I am facing now with the potential things my 3 year old can get exposed to. As with games, the web and chat many parents/guardians will be unaware of the human interaction and depth of experience possible.

But kids are normally less goal-oriented and far more interested in play. I think that’s actually what Second Life offers right now. The problem, of course, is that most people wouldn’t want their kids roaming loose in Second Life, unsupervised. If the BBC can figure out a way to fix that problem with removing the fun social interaction (and I have to admit it’s not entirely obvious to me right now how they’d do that), they’ll be onto a winner.

Of course, whether they should be spending license fees on this is an entirely separate debate… :)

Although Habbo and Sl do not look the same - not by a longshot - she apparently recognized SL as a metaverse, from having seen another one.