While the family is shopping or going to the movies, I told my son I was going to hang out at the bookstore and post my predictions for 2010. He thought it was pretty funny that anyone would care what I thought and started calling me “ Nostradamus”. Nothing like family to keep you grounded.

Still, there is some value in making predictions even if you are wrong or no one sees them. For example, I see a lot of overly optimistic posts on things like Google Wave, virtual worlds, social media and so on where people correctly identify the potentials but don’t foresee all the pitfalls. If these people would revisit their statements a year later, they would be much more accurate in the future.

The same goes for many people who often dismiss new technologies as a fad, or as no business value. You don’t get a lot people making predictions about failures but I’d like to see more of this. I’d love to be able to identify the useful curmudgeons from the ones that just hate change.

You can see my predictions for 2009 here and I’ll soon be posting my 2010 predictions.

There was an interesting post on Massively called  “Is Linden Lab wasting its time on the existing Second Life population? Then John Carter pointed me to some of @DaleInnis ’s posts related to Linden Labs “futzing around with the world”  that also got me thinking (good stuff, follow some of her links)

This is an old problem that many companies have. How do you keep current customers happy when expanding out to reach even more people? You have enthusiasts that help build and market your product that you don’t want to alienate. At the same time you see the competition in your rear view mirror and your product has not caught on like it might.

For Second Life, I’m right in the middle. I’ve been a part of different communities for years. I love art and music and creativity that is so easily expressed there. I love the coming together of minds and discussions on philosophy and psychology (I can talk all day about augmentalist and immersionists). I spend money. The fact you can run a business there and make money is a very powerful feature.

At the same time, in real life, I’m one of those techies or corporate guys that often gets a bad rap in SL. I see so much potential for many of the Second Life technologies to do much more than they do today. It could reach many more people and businesses than it does in its current incarnation. For businesses and education, I see a lot of money that can be saved for people, schools and companies (and money that can be made by virtual world companies). And I’m tired of what sometimes seems to be the continuous focus on the wrong problems, coming at least in part, from the SL community itself. It makes real progress sooooo slow.

So, for now, I’ll just keep using Second Life for fun. Someday I’ll start pushing for it to be used to solve real world problems but at this pace, it is years away.

P.S. Yes, I know there are many examples of virtual worlds  being used in business and there is a lot of enthusiasm for education and training. IMHO, the vector is just not the steep. I also know there are many other Virtual Worlds – I hope the competition triggers a change.