Thanks so much for all of the thoughts and comments many of you have shared.  I’ve combined several comments to the original post in order to help clarify a few points.
First of all – I’m definitely not leaving Second Life or virtual worlds!  I’m not disenchanted with the platform by any means, and I fully intend to remain active in Second Life.  These are exciting times for virtual worlds, and I remain as busy as ever designing and developing content in Second Life and opensim as an independent consultant.  I wouldn’t have it any …

Written by DB Bailey (David Denton Architect):
In the larger sense, I don’t know why we are here. Two years ago, my name appeared on a short list of international architects approved by the Egyptian government for planning projects here. My first reaction was suspicion, especially when I received the same week an invitation to come work in Nigeria, which quickly proved to be a scam.
It seemed particularly curious that my name would be on a list of seventeen firms, most of which were huge international enterprises. I was amused to …

Cross post from the Studio Wikitecture blog:
A Big Congratulations goes out to the following contributors to the University of Alabama’s Virtual Classroom Project.  After two rounds of voting the following spreadsheet illustrates the breakdown down in winnings.  As mentioned earlier, as not to present any conflict of interest, Keystone and Theory bowed out of the winning proceeds.
We also have some exciting news to share!  As many of you know, the ‘Wiki-Tree’ or 3D-Wiki tool we used during the last 2 Wikitecture projects was designed to serve as a temporary prototype, …

New Wikitecture Project Kick-off event: October 23nd at 5:00pm Pacific (SL-time)

With so many universities and academic institutions from around the world using virtual environments like Second Life for teaching and research, many have started to wonder what, exactly is a virtual classroom?
In an environment where you can fly, and with no elements to protect from, what role does architecture play in a virtual university?  In what ways should a virtual classroom be similar to a classroom in real life?  How might they be different?  How can the virtual architecture best …

Here we have Lebbeus Woods, who “continues to work at a small drafting table in a corner of his apartment here, a solitary, monklike figure churning out increasingly abstract architectural fantasies…”
Would someone please get this man a Second Life account?
He even has a show running at MoMA called ‘Dreamland’  (not to be confused with Anshe Chung’s virtual ‘Dreamland‘ empire in Second Life).
If ever there was an architect who’s work would benefit from virtual immersion, it is Lebbeus Woods.  His sketches are brilliant, and will always hold an important post in …

I haven’t had a chance to review this yet, but wanted to pass along right away a link to Digital Urban’s post announcing their newest in their series of UCL Working Papers available HERE.
“The world of Geographic Information (GI) Science has changed. It has experienced expeditious growth over the last few years leading to fundamental changes to the field. Web 2.0, specifically The Cloud, GeoWeb and Wikitecture are revolutionising the way in which we present, share and analyse geographic data.”
Their work is always very thorough and engaging, I’m sure this …

Darb Dabney is a veritable whirlwind of energy when it comes to mirroring Berkeley, California in a virtual environment.  If avatars ever walk the streets of virtual Berkeley, there will be a gleeful Darb showing it off and giving tours!  I am increasingly confident that it won’t be long before he achieves this dream.  His most recent effort is a 40-region build in OpenSim using nothing but LiDAR surface sculpties, as shown in the video above, and described on his blog HERE.
“Wow it has been a lot of effort to …

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw0zDu28kzE]
Check out Mario Gerosa’s interview, part of a Mission completed in the CheckinArchitecture project, submitted by Fabio Falzone and Jacopo Fontana.  From their YouTube description:
“But what about traveling in the virtual worlds today? During the 80s, it was a trend to refer to traveling in virtual reality like a physical voyage, where the use of a head-mounted display was inseparable from the trip itself. Today, it is more about eyesight than body experience: we stand in front of the monitor without moving. It is a non-linear trip, similar to an …

[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHWMapSAHSU]
This just in from Hidenori Watanave (including video above):
“Yesterday I invited “Atelier Ten Architects” for my laboratory of Tokyo Metropolitan University, and they made a special lecture of “Architecture in physical world / virtual worlds”.
They are “Real” architect that had produced many architectural projects in physical world, and also, they are “Virtual” architect in Second Life, too. In “Digital Design Competition 2007″ (I was a jury member), they won the Grand-prix of competiton.
They got a cooperation by a information-technology company “GMO Tea-cup communications inc.”, and realized their idea …