Gartner, yesterday at its tech symposium made a prediction that’s going to set the clock ticking. It said that 80% of active Internet users will be involved in Sccond Life by 2011.

So it’s not surprising that coleges are rushing into SL.

Among them are a few expected names —Columbia, Harvard, Leeds Colege, and Stanford. University of Texas has four islands!  The San Francisco museum of science, art and human perception has its Exploratium in SL. One university has held a 300 level writing seminar (on technology and society). Harvard had an ‘immersive’ seminar last year. The list goes on…

In one sense, Second Life is social media at its best –immersive,
interactive, dynamic, and a totally opt-in environment. But it’s the ability to
engage in content that truly attracts me. Reuters has video, a news
ticker, and downloadable documents in a rich multimedia experience you
just could not have, even via a web 2.0 web site.

From the perspective of lectures, and student interacton, this will
be where many other social media tools –video and movies, IM,
pictures, flash animation, blogs and wikis come together.