In case you missed the addendum to the post about the rumor about Google Earth turning into Second Life, it ain’t happening.

What’s interesting, however, is that at Davos this week Bill Gates reiterated his view from 15 months ago that virtual shopping will be Virtual Earth 3D’s killer app.

Also interesting is that Second Life was very much the darling of Davos, fawned over by business leaders, digerati and journalists alike. In a space of about a week, a burgeoning meme that was all set for prime time has exploded in reach.

But most of Second Life’s fame still rests on its potential. This makes for backlashes, and the criticisms are fair — yes, much of Second Life is concerned with pörn and gambling; yes, there are fewer users than you might think; yes, it can be empty and sterile; no, we don’t know what protocol the coming metaverse will settle on. But what I am convinced of is that a metaverse is coming, and it is best to start getting the expertise for it sooner rather than later.

That’s the rationale behind the Swedish Institute getting into Second Life now. If there was anything holding us back in our decision, it was not the fear that Second Life was over-hyped, but rather that we’d be seen as falling victim to the hype. In fact, we’re in it to experiment, make our mistakes, and have Second Life residents act as our focus groups. A couple of years from now, every time the Swedish Institute embarks on a new nation branding campaign, our toolbox will contain print, web, audio, video, traveling exhibits and, yes, the metaverse. It’s the next “next” communications platform, with its own advantages and quirks, and we want to find out what works.

And what will work? My guess is that as more conventional content enters the metaverse, more conventional users will follow. The challenge is to find out how to make such content compelling, using the specific advantages that 3D virtual worlds bring. It will take a while before we stop using old communications paradigms in this new medium, just as it was when the world wide web was new — we had to learn to stop publishing virtual issues of paper magazines to the web and move to more native systems: Continuous publishing and blogs. What are the metaverse’s native communications tools? Perhaps it will be role-playing, perhaps crowd participation, perhaps learning by example, and probably something completely different. I can’t wait to find out what it is.

How does that rumor go precisely, you know, the one that people just haven’t been able to stop blogging about for the past 48 hours?

Heard an interesting rumor today from an academic who heard through the PhD grapevine…Google is working on turning Google Earth into a virtual world a la SecondLife.

Argh. I read that and thought, that’s how rumors are born — start with a misplaced analogy taken literally, add a dash of academic credibility, then feed it through a blogger’s bullhorn: off to the horizon it races.

But GigaOM has just now added another angle:

Our sources in China say that Google has teamed up with a Chinese company to develop the “virtual people” or avatars, while an internal team develops the virtual world internally.

And another potential piece in the puzzle: the WSJ reporting last week that Google is in talks to acquire AdScape Media, an in-world advertiser.

So that’s all the info to go on. And now I can’t help but blog it. What to make of this?

Although the technology is similar, there is a fundamental difference between virtual worlds like Second Life and Mirror Worlds like Google Earth. SL is limited only by the human imagination; GE attempts to reconstruct the real world as accurately as possible. I don’t think this basic classification will change. I could definitely see more social tools come to Google Earth, and I could also see Google wanting to create a MySpace killer by offering personal customizable 3D spaces which our avatars can frolic in; but such a system of linked personal 3D worlds would be a separate, new product — at least that is my own rampant speculation on what might make sense, based on no insider knowledge whatsoever.

If Google Earth is in for a social overhaul, what might that involve? I think Microsoft’s Bill Gates has already been quite forthcoming with the plans for Virtual Earth, and I think we should expect Google’s aims to be similar: It’s all about virtual shopping. In SL you shop for virtual clothes; in GE, presumably, you will one day be able to navigate the neighborhood you know so well to the store you have in mind, and then either visit its website to order merchandise, or else navigate a chain’s proper 3D store (if the investment has been made), much as you do now in SL, with the crucial difference that the goods you buy are actually delivered to your doorstep. (However: A store on IBM’s SL island is already experimenting with deliveries from Second Life to your doorstep.)

This might not be as efficient as doing a search for a book title on Amazon.com, but it might be more fun if you get to do it with an friend’s avatar, and discuss your imminent purchase.

Another way of putting this is that avatars might be useful as a signal of what you’re paying attention to. Avatars are really just points of view made flesh, and that point of view might be something you want to share with friends. Perhaps you’ll be able to invite a friend to “follow along” as you shop, so that you dictate the general location but not the specific point of view. Or perhaps, as you gather around a particular book on display, you will meet strangers who have the same interest as you at that moment — as good a place as a real bookstore to try your pickup lines.

In another context, we might have a teacher taking a classroom of students at connected Google Earths on a geography trip. The teacher controls the location of the view, but in that local space, students can roam about and do their own exploring.

Or perhaps that’s completely wrong. Perhaps the way forward for avatars in Google Earth is as signals of where you actually are on the globe (or at least your GPS-enabled mobile phone/gadget). Several third party services give us this capability right now, but there is nothing quite like making that a built-in feature in Google Earth for it to acquire ubiquity. Then you can really get all social-like — though this is perhaps most useful on mobile-friendly Google Maps, where a fancy avatar is a waste of space. Something like this already exists — Dodgeball. Google would just have to snap that up. Oh wait, they already did.

[Now go read what Avi has to say about all this. He actually knows what he’s talking about — though I don’t think a fictional layer for Google Earth is a likely scenario. For Google Mars though, yes, now that would be fun. Sign me up for a Fallingwater on the edge of Valles Marineris!]

[Update 17:08 UTC: I think Google Earth CTO Michael Jones’s comment below pretty much lays the Google Earth => Second Life rumor to rest.]

[Update 17:18 UTC: Looks like John Battelle gets it right too.]

Excuse the interruption of coverage on Ogle Earth, despite there being obvious virtual globe news to report, but things can get a little hectic over at the Swedish Institute. Yesterday we launched Linnaeus300.com, a site that uses Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus’ 300th birthday as an excuse to bring science into the classrooms — one question a week meant to elicit discussions and feedback. (Pardon the Flash — I know it needs to go). I played my part by organizing a little side-meeting of Swedish science bloggers, getting them to agree that setting up a kind of Planet GS but for science (in Swedish) would be a good idea. James Fee, I need to talk to you:-)

And then I’m partly to blame for this:

Sweden to set up embassy in Second Life

Sweden is to become the first country to establish diplomatic representation in the virtual reality world of Second Life, officials said.

“We are planning to establish a Swedish embassy in Second Life primarily as an information portal for Sweden,” Swedish Institute (SI) director Olle Wästberg told AFP.

I’ll be project-managing that particular effort. The plan wasn’t to announce first and produce later, but that was before the Swedish media got hold of the story. At least in the worst-case scenario, we’ll have been the first to announce an intention to have a government presence in Second Life:-).

And now I’m in Berlin for the weekend, which also puts a serious damper on blog productivity. But stay tuned.

It didn’t take long for the lesson from Basra to sink in with other governments. Here comes the next volley from South Korea. Reports dongA.com today:

In the satellite service provided by U.S. search portal “Google,” a closely-taken photo of an anti-aircraft missile position of Korea’s air force is posted. Since the photo is showing part of the key defense networks of Seoul and the metropolitan area against North Korea, they are raising a security issue. […]

The resolution of the photo is so high that one can see not only the exact location of the military unit but also how many positions of anti-air craft missiles exist and where those missiles are deployed within the unit. One military official said, “The location of key air-defense missile deployments are an important military secret. They are at least category 2 confidentiality.” […]

One source from a military security agency said, ” Since there is no means to ban the satellite photos taken by foreign commercial satellites, which are not subject to domestic laws. Currently there is no clear way to deal with such issues even if similar cases happen.”

Maybe they could try to find a North Korean holding a printout of the view from Google Earth.

• Yet another funny ending to an article (Google tailors Earth for DOD users):
  

  He was reluctant to disclose customers, but said the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the Coast Guard and the state of Alabama through a grant from the Homeland Security Department use Google Earth products.

  That’s according to Rob Painter, director of Google Earth Federal, responsible for selling Google Earth Fusion and related products to US federal agencies, including the Department of Defense. I’m honestly curious: Is this technology exportable? Is it something Google is allowed to sell to Kenya, for example, or Sudan?

• A lovely and original biography of MC Escher, illustrated with his own drawings and with views in Google Earth of the places that inspired them. A KML placemark collection lets you investigate all this content geospatially, at your leisure. Brought to you by Paul Dorsey.
• More GUI goodness in this press release:
  

  Mechdyne Corporation today announced that its VRCO software division released Conduit for Google Earth Pro 4.0, a visualization middleware package that enables stereoscopic display of desktop-based imagery and viewing in multi-planar , large-scale immersive and interactive displays…

  Do check out this short but, er, immersive video. I’m surprised the guy can stand up at all. No price is given for Conduit, but I’m guessing that if you have to ask…

• A datapoint: Not sure how significant this is but CondoDomain is moving from Virtual Earth to Google Maps because:
  

  Recently, Microsoft Virtual Earth has had difficulties rendering our Geo-coder in the new Firefox 2.0. Supposedly there is a fix for this (as we were told @ Inman Connect NYC), however, we have had zero response from Microsoft….so Microsoft, your out…Google is moving in!

  Is the internet mapping business so cut-throat that Google, Microsoft et al are now also going to have to offer free tech support to their free services to get people to develop for them?

• Andrew Hudson-Smith & co’s Google Earth Panorama viewer makes it to Make: Blog. Greatness awaits.
• David Riallant, he of Pict’Earth, the system for collecting aerial imagery from a lightweight drone and positioning it on Google Earth that made such a splash a few weeks ago, has started up a partnership and a blog with Valery Hronusov, he of Superoverlay, the application for chopping up large images into bit-sized ones so that Google Earth can display them more fluidly.
• Franson’s GpsGate.com lets you publish your GPS position from a GPS-enabled mobile phone to the internet, so friends can follow you around online in real time, including on Google Earth. Here‘s how it works. The only small print: You need to buy the software ($10) but there’s a free trial.

Funniest ending to an article about Google Earth in a while:

The Corrections Department said Google Earth’s images did not reveal any jails’ security features. But Corrections asked The Dominion Post not to mention that prisons could be viewed. Just in case.

What a valiant attempt at security through obscurity. Those are New Zealand jails we aren’t mentioning. Just to be clear. I wonder if inmates have access to Google Earth?

I so want to live in the future. Not too far off, just about to where I can afford me one of these. Or maybe two:

Note the appearance of Google Earth in the video. The person we can thank for this is Jeff Han. Fast Company has an article about him and the company set to produce these, Perceptive Pixel. Data Mining has more if you’re curious.