Is the party over? Probably.
The "Corporate Exodus" story continues. Several notable companies came to SL, burned up lots of marketing dollars for empty sims, and then left within a year.
In addition, SL land values have plummeted due to LL's creation of void sims - allowing a four-for-one swap of existing parcels for new lower density ones.
When these factors are combined with a host of new alternatives - Opensim, Tribalnet.se, and Lively, the SL Buzz has really diminished.
The real story continues to be about collaboration. Second Life offers a tremendous opportunity for various communities to meet and share ideas in real time.
As in “Real Life” (RL), SL is what you make it, literally. I hope to share some of the things I’m learning about SL as I go along. If you’re in SL to learn and collaborate with others, this site may be of some interest to you.
If it isn’t a Server, Desktop, or Laptop, it’s Embedded...
As an Embedded Software Developer in RL, my main technical interest in Second Life is the development of software architectures that make data available between the two worlds, real and virtual. Small embedded systems ( 8 & 16 bit) are latecomers to internet connectivity, but the number of networked embedded devices is exploding.
Many much larger organizations are exploring the same topic— See the SL Places section.