It's becoming clear that the meme that the Ogoglio project is attempting to replace Second Life is gathering steam (e.g. this article), and so I'd like to clear the air a bit with this list of differences between the Ogoglio project's goals and Second Life:
Second Life is a product, while Ogoglio is a project.
Think of the Ogoglio project in the same way that you think of the Apache project. They both produce technologies and have large scale goals beyond those technologies, but they're not terribly interesting until a person or company takes their output and creates a service on top.
Second Life is one big world, while Ogoglio provides loosely connected spaces.
The Ogoglio platform (be it a single machine or a cluster) can host multiple spaces. These spaces can range in size from a broom closet to a mirror world of the Gobi desert and they can be dynamically connected to each other. The term "Ogoglio City" refers to one network of these spaces much in the same way that "the web" refers to one network of HTTP servers.
Second Life is viewed in one big client, while Ogoglio is viewed in web browsers.
To enter an Ogoglio space you just browse to a web page. A lot of users won't need any new software, but in the worst case they'll install once and from then on it takes a few seconds to enter any space. To enter Second Life you have to download a large client application, start it up when you want to enter Second Life, and then you have to download updates every other week or so.
Second Life runs on one big company grid, while anyone can download and run the Ogoglio platform.
The Ogoglio platform runs inside of off-the-shelf web servers, so all of the IT people in the world already know the basics of how to manage the Ogoglio platform.
Second Life is barely Open Source, while Ogoglio is on Sourceforge.
Though they're moving in the right direction with the open client, some of the core technologies of Second Life (like the physics engine) aren't owned by Linden Lab and cannot be open sourced. The Ogoglio platform is developed in public under the Apache 2 license, which means that like the apache web server it can be used in commercial and non-commercial applications.
Second Life has thousands of happy users, while the Ogoglio platform is not yet in beta.
If the proof is in the pudding, then Linden Lab is churning out millions of pudding pops while the Ogoglio project is gathering ingredients.
Second Life uses custom tools, while Ogoglio is built from web tools.
In addition to being viewed in web browsers and hosted in web servers, Ogoglio spaces are created using the same standards and languages as web sites. Scripting is in Javascript, 2D layout is in HTML, and 3D objects are built using industry standard formats which are straightforward enough that web developers will feel right at home.
The bottom line is that saying that Ogoglio is going to replace Second Life is a lot like saying that the MP3 file format is going to replace concert halls. Based on all of the recent announcements I believe that 2007 is the year we start spending more time in web based spaces like Ogoglio's than in stand-alone worlds like Second Life, but let's not confuse a project with a product.
Another way to state that Ogoglio (or anything) is not a attempt at Second Life II is the growing number of programs that are trying to do similar things.
Once upon a time, a good 3D shooting game was called a "Quake Killer".
For a while longer, anything involving shared 3D space will be compared to Second Life (or There), much like the Sony "Home" space.
Later, the subtle (and not so subtle) differences will stand out.
Posted by: Blueman Steele | March 20, 2007 at 11:05 AM