Essay: Second Life as the new Silicon Valley

Second Life has become somewhat of a new hobby for me. I signed up a few weeks ago, and have spent a bit of time there. I've never been a gamer or someone who spends any time doing any of the "virtual life" stuff so spending time in a place like Second Life is a little bit out of character.

So, why, then? Mainly, it's because I've been hearing so much about Second Life that I felt there must be something I was missing. The real backbreaker for me, which prompted spending time in the "game" was BBC announcing its plans to broadcast a music festival in Second Life. I've always thought that if a big business "gets" something, then clearly it's worth at least researching. Big businesses are slow -- if they get something, it probably has already passed through the early adopters and succeeded.

What have I learned in the last few weeks? Well, quite frankly, I think Second Life is the new Silicon Valley in many instances.

Paul Graham just wrote about How to Be Silicon Valley where he asserts that building another silicon valley would take nerds, good schools, money, creativity, and youth. He has a couple other values, but most of those relate only to the rather closed-minded view that a silicon valley only happens because of real-world geographical constraints.

First of all, one thing Paul doesn't really explain concretely: What does it mean to be a silicon valley, anyways? What are the key values that make it so special?

As someone who isn't in Silicon Valley, and has only spent 48 hours there, I'm not sure I'm qualified to make this assessment. But, by the same token, I think that gives me a unique perspective of what folks outside of the valley don't have, likely from not being there.

The one thing I miss the most is not the lack of money (though I agree this is a valuable part of the ecosystem), but rather the sharing and networking.

Being able to meet, talk to, and exchange ideas with other smart people so easily and fluidly is the key ingredient to Silicon Valley. This, perhaps, stems from an open and smart academic lifestyle (like Paul Graham says) which moves on to the private sector as students graduate or leave the universities.

This exchange of information leads to starting companies based in Silicon Valley, which leads to money and therefore more companies. Fairly simple cycle.

But if sharing and networking are the core of silicon valley, doesn't that mean the more the merrier in terms of population size? I'd argue so (sure there's probably a point where the Law of Diminishing Returns takes over, but it likely takes a while to get there).

If the more the merrier, then why not allow technology to help build a new, larger silicon valley?

Second Life provides opportunities to us (read: entrepreneurs, investors, bloggers, and others) which have never existed before in such real terms. A fully buildable universe with a thriving ecosystem and the ability for real, personal relationships through the internet is something that technologists have always hoped for.

This comes not only at a time when the technology to share knowledge online has become usable, but also at a time when people are finally having success with their virtual offices. The blogosphere doesn't have to look any further than the success of 37Signals to see that you can, in fact, work well without being in a single phsyical office.

One thing I've been pushing Maurice to consider with me is to spend some time in Second Life, get a feel for how it works, understand the culture, and think about putting a small amount of money into building an office within Second Life.

Maybe I'm just being a baby, but I really dislike not being able to attend the cool functions such as Lunch 2.0 or TechCrunch parties or any of the number of other events.

Why not move a couple of those over to Second Life, instead? Imagine the possibilities!

I want to be able to see Robert Scoble and Shel Israel give a talk about Naked Conversations.

I want to see Michael Arrington and Richard MacManus debate on a panel on whether Web 2.0 exists.

I want to speak with Israeli VC's in real-time (and in my limited Hebrew) without spending a fortune to get to Israel.

We can do all this on Second Life: there's great video capabilities, we can build a conference hall and meeting space. Heck, now we can even interact with the web using Second Life's version of XmlHttpRequest. These events can be public and available to share information with anyone, regardless of geography.

Whether or not one can build another phsyical silicon valley as Paul Graham argues, I'm not sure. However, I am fairly confident that we can -- and should -- use technology to take the biggest strength of Silicon Valley and expose it to the world. Of course, this'll never replace Silicon Valley, but it'd certainly be a great place to meet and share knowledge, and perhaps it would become a great place to find talent for your newest startup, too.

Very shortly I'm going to begin building the presence for Openomy in Second Life. It will likely consist of a "meeting room" (a smaller room where we can invite a few people in to chat with) and a large "conference center" (a very large space with a video screen and a stage where we can invite speakers to come talk to the public who can watch from the audience). I'll try to invite speakers as often as possible, to build some awareness of this and hopefully create a space where techies will enjoy hanging out. Maybe some "Meet and Greet 2.0" events, too -- come and hang out and chat with other techies and entrepreneurs.

Perhaps it will be the start of a new virtual silicon valley?

Tags: second life, paul graham, web 2.0, business, silicon valley, entrepreneurship, venture capital