Gartner: 80% of Internet Users Will Have a Virtual Life By 2011

The 3D, real-time Internet is around the corner. Yet enormous companies are still asking not only "should we blog?" but "what's a blog?" Hey, I got paid to explain that in detail to a Fortune 100 company only two weeks ago.

Gartner reports that by the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life”, but not necessarily in Second Life.

Investigate and experiment with this trend, Gartner tells enterprise clients, "but limit substantial financial investments until the environments stabilize and mature." In other words, do that toe in the water thing big companies like so much.

Gartner believes that “"significant transaction-based commercial opportunities will be limited to niche areas, which have yet to be clearly identified." I think they're wrong about that, but time will tell. A number of startups are working on interesting shopping and e-commerce platforms in 3D.

The collaborative and community-related aspects of these environments will dominate in the future, says Steve Prentice, Gartner analyst and VP.

Some good places to get up to speed and keep up with virtual reality include Metaversed, Businessweek's special report on the virtual web, and Millions of Us.