The Merging of Grids

[Diamond Coronet]

In an interview, Phillip Linden spoke of the planning of merging the
teen and adult grid. This would broaden the possibilities of
education and Renaissance audiences.

Here's part of the Metanomics transcript:


ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: ... So what are your plans with the Teen Grid at
this point?


PHILIP ROSEDALE: Generally, I think that the future of Second Life
needs to be one where people of all ages can use Second Life together,
and that's the direction that we're taking in our planning and our
work. I think that the educational opportunities for Second Life are
so great for all ages that we need to make it as available as we
possibly can to people. If you look at what we've done with the Teen
Grid, I think we've done a good job, as a small company, of being
inclusive and creating an environment in which teenagers were able to
use Second Life, I think, perhaps earlier than, I don't know, we might
have been able to. We pushed hard to get that working.


But, if you look at the problems with having a teenaged area, which is
itself so isolated from the rest of the World, they're substantial.
There's an inability for educators to easily interact with people in
there because we've made it an exclusively teen only area. Parents
can't join their kids in Second Life so problems like that are ones
that we think are pretty fundamental and need to be fixed. We need to
stop creating isolated areas that are age specific and, instead, look
at how we can make the overall experience appropriately safe and
controlled for everybody. So that's the general direction that we're
taking there.


ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Do you expect any official action or public notice
on this anytime soon? And is the idea am I hearing you right that it
would basically be to allow people of any age to come into at least
some parts of Second Life? Is that what I'm hearing?


PHILIP ROSEDALE: Definitely. From my perspective, our long term
strategy is that but I won't make any specific "this is what's coming
next and that's where you can expect it," in that regard. We're still
working on how to do that and what to do next.

For full excerpts, below are links to 2 sites that quote Philip
Rosedale.

http://www.raulcrimson.com/2009/01/20/the-merging-of-the-grids-teen-and-main-all-in-one/

http://www.metanomics.net/philip-rosedale-hope-anxiety-virtual-worlds