From Second Life to Second Childhood

Forget Second Life (at least for the next 5 years). Buy your kid a Webkinz toy, create a virtual pet, and get ready for the future of online entertainment. Virtual worlds for children and teens are growing at an exponential rate. They have become the new chatroom, networked game, and social computing destination all rolled into one virtual stuffed animal house. Which for some reason is just as messy as my kids’ real bedrooms.

These are virtual worlds with a purpose and are generating real dollars for the companies running them. At some point Nickelodeon will create a virtual TV so my kids can watch real shows in their virtual bedroom with their real friends. Just try measuring the effectiveness of that broadband video campaign...