I just spent WAY too long in the local Fairfax H&R Block, waiting for Michael, the local tax guy to figure out how to do my taxes. While he was "out back" trying to cajole the system into filing my 1116 (Foreign Tax Credit) form, I sneakily opened a web browser on his machine...
The default home page was an internal intranet site. It told me, in delighted H1, that H&R Block had just opened an island on second life.
"No way!", I hear you exclaim (Or is that just me thinking loud...)
Way...
As long as you don't have to pay tax twice on your second life... although I guess it kind of makes sense. Incidentally, my tax 'burden' here in the US for the last year ended up being the princely tithe of 185 dollars - apparently because I have four kids. Still, it seems crazy low. I don't know who's paying the taxes over here, but it turns out that it's not me...
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Second Life is an awesome concept that I was really into when it first started. It has been highly successful, with its virtual economy growing steadily, and its user base as well. Unfortunately, SL misses the mark when it comes to the interface and design. I won't go into that here, but I will say that more and more companies are starting to build their own locations in the SL world, because there is a modest amount of traffic there. SL is in my viewpoint a stepping stone towards a virtual ethos that parallels reality. Your Matrix or Cyber-Net, if you will. Corporate buy-in only brings us closer to that reality. The Internet through pages and text will become a thing of the past, mark my words.
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