Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Nautilus

    The Man Who Created Second Life Thinks We Can Make an Earth-Sized Virtual World

    by Kiki Sanford Sep 27, 2015 5 minutes

    Over 10 years ago, a digital experiment called Second Life launched, and excitement surged about the idea of interacting in online virtual worlds. Created by Linden Lab, a company founded by Philip Rosedale, the platform gained popularity as people swarmed to participate in a new form of social connection. But, Second Life’s period of rapid growth was brief. By 2010, its population of 88,000 concurrent users had withered to nearly half its former size.

    Philip RosedalePhoto courtesy of Kiki Sanford

    Yet, technology advances, and now virtual space is becoming much more real with the appearance of immersive, virtual reality headwear, manufactured by companies like the Facebook-backed Oculus VR and Microsoft.

    Riding this wave of virtual reality expansion, Rosedale’s new company, High Fidelity, is developing the successor to the Second Life experience. I spoke with him about his thoughts on the

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Nautilus

    Nautilus3 min read
    Making Light of Gravity
    1 Gravity is fun! The word gravity, derived by Newton from the Latin gravitas, conveys both weight and deadly seriousness. But gravity can be the opposite of that. As I researched my book during the sleep-deprived days of the pandemic, flashbacks to
    Nautilus5 min read
    The Bad Trip Detective
    Jules Evans was 17 years old when he had his first unpleasant run-in with psychedelic drugs. Caught up in the heady rave culture that gripped ’90s London, he took some acid at a club one night and followed a herd of unknown faces to an afterparty. Th
    Nautilus10 min read
    The Ocean Apocalypse Is Upon Us, Maybe
    From our small, terrestrial vantage points, we sometimes struggle to imagine the ocean’s impact on our lives. We often think of the ocean as a flat expanse of blue, with currents as orderly, if sinuous, lines. In reality, it is vaster and more chaoti

    Related Books & Audiobooks