Link: Google embeds YouTube videos into Google Earth.
The thought experiment: The satellite imagery in Google Earth is just data, information, bits. What if Google recreated Google Earth using the underlying Google Earth engine, but instead of skinning it with satellite imagery, they started it as a blank sphere (tabula rasa) and they let common, everyday folk create what a (building, block, township, county, state, continent) looked like? And then let folks create their own world by weaving together the terraformed creations? That would kinda be like SL, wouldn’t it?
image: lat long blog
Actually, your description sounds remarkably like the way Neal Stephenson described the development of the Metaverse in Snow Crash (1992).
The exact description eludes me (and Google, for that matter), but it was basically like a blank, featureless sphere, with a ring of streetlights placed every 256 km that defined “main street.” Everything else was built by the residents to meet their own needs and desires.
ha! you’re totally right; hadn’t thought of that. am currently in the middle of _the baroque cycle_, so that makes sense, i guess. 🙂