Winds let us know when we're approaching the edge of something very large. We feel the breeze and smell the air before we see the ocean. Its sound is heard before we reach the shore. Unless you're approaching from higher ground, it can be difficult to grasp the scale of the ocean until you get to the beach.  On some beaches, there are places where all you can see without turning around is the ocean. At times, it can be hard to hear above the roar of the waves or stand your ground against the undercurrents. 

Last month The Meshverse Journal turned 5 years old. Cyberspace was quite different in 2006 - cell phones had lousy web browsers(the iPhone didn't debut until 2007), social networks were still emerging from a sea of disconnected blogs and web pages. Twitter had just launched and Second Life was a legitimate contender to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. The MJ theme of "people, places, things and events" as a platform was an innovative concept which time has shown to be pretty much on the mark. Some things took routes I didn't anticipate. The iPhone provided a faster track to the theme of location, location, location than 3D and mobile devices slowed the emergence of virtual currencies, but these facets were in the right ballpark and are starting to pick up steam. Desktop manufacturing aka 3D printing mentioned here in 2006's The Art of the Bottom Line, also continues to expand its reach.

The meshverse platform was a natural evolution of my work with Community Catalyst and I have been able over these past five years to build and test many key components of a meshverse platform. I've learned a great deal in the process. However, even if I had today the collaborators and resources needed to bring to market a solution to a compelling problem, the window of opportunity peaked in 2009. There simply isn't enough time for a new platform to gain sufficient traction. More significantly, the dawn of a new era is approaching, one that will bring us via the big simulation, to the brink of a space called the singularity where we strictly biological humans will lose the ability to obtain meaning(search engines don't really do that) from the ocean of information around us.  By the end of the year, I'll post the final entry to the Meshverse Journal which will address the next stop on the journey. In the meantime, a quick peek over the horizon.

Update:

I decided that I mighjt be wrong about there not being enough time for the meshverse platform to take root - the winds of change may have created an opening. At a minimum, I need the meshverse platform to get to the next stop.  I am however going to take that conversation private so if you don't get an invite and want to keep following reach out for me on Twitter.

 

Today human communications reach from this planet to the Moon and very far beyond. At present the twin Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 are both roughly 10 billion miles away in the heliopause, the edge of the solar system where the solar winds die down. You could call this the beach of the ocean of interstellar space.

The signals Voyager spacecraft are sending back have caused us to  recalculate just how large our solar system is. Even so we know that our solar system is quite small relative to the rest of the observable universe. We only have detailed knowledge about a very small part of the universe because most of it is made up of  dark matter(22%) and dark energy(74%) which we know little to nothing about. 

 

... what that dark energy is remains an enigma - perhaps the greatest in physics today. What is known is that dark energy constitutes about three quarters of the Universe. Therefore the findings of the 2011 Nobel Laureates in Physics have helped to unveil a Universe that to a large extent is unknown to science. And everything is possible again.

 Nobel Prize for Physics 2011 Press Release

Along with astrophysics, advances in quantum physics are pushing us to recalculate what we actually mean by the concept of a universe. Most physicists agree that in some form or another, multiple universes exist and that  information probably plays some crucial role(see the currently airing NOVA series - The Fabric of the Cosmos).   There is a growing acceptance of the idea that the universe is the result of a calculation, that it and everything it including knowledge and meaning is computable. More than a theoretical notion, this idea is being applied today by the Wolfram Alpha answer engine which is being used in Microsoft's Bing and Apple's Siri. The question is how do we keep Humans In The Loop?

Virtual currency and goods have been a recurring theme here on the MJ. Here's an update:

Washington Post: Second Life's virtual money can become real-life cash

Last year, as the physical economy withered, Second Life's economy blossomed, with user-to-user transactions topping $567 million in actual U.S. currency, a 65 percent jump over 2008. About 770,000 unique users made repeat visits to Second Life in December, and the users, known as residents, cashed out $55 million of their Second Life earnings last year, transferring that money to PayPal accounts.

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More than 50 businesses in the virtual world made more than $100,000 each last year.

Second Life's owner, Linden Lab, makes money by selling land plots and islands. An island runs about $1,000, a high barrier of entry for most Second Life users. But to open a strip mall, dance club or office tower, or to build a home, avatars need land. Some Second Life users have taken on Donald Trump-like personas, buying land from Second Life and then leasing plots to small-business owners or would-be homeowners, or flipping their properties as speculators.

As in physical reality, these land barons are few in number but generate a big chunk of the world's gross domestic product. The top 25 Second Life earners are mostly land barons, making a combined $12 million.

ABC News on virtual gifts

Americans are expected to spend $1.6 billion on virtual goods this year,

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Some companies make a handsome profit selling virtual gifts. In most online settings, gifts can be bought and sold using virtual credits, but these always have to be bought with real cash from the parent company. On Facebook, for example, a $1 gift will cost you 10 credits.

Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of a booming online community called IMVU, says his company sells $3 million of credits each month that customers use to dress avatars or build homes, with almost $1 million a month spent on gifts.

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Zynga, the company behind Facebook's immensely popular "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars," made an estimated $200 million last year simply by enticing players to buy and sell virtual seeds and chickens, according to Inside Network's Smith. In fact, some of FarmVille's vital goods, such as chickens, can only be gifted.

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And while in the past virtual goods were mostly bought by teens and young men with X-Box consoles, women have started making a big dent in the virtual economy.