The real world of Virtual Worlds is in the line of fire. Everybody's talking about this lately, Second Life is in the main actor of what really looks like the next big thing in communication. If the word wasn't already took by the promises of the Semantic Web we could say that the web 3.0 will just be this, virtual worlds.

Virtual worlds are with very few doubts the hype of the moment, as already happened with the web, and its bubbles, the first millionaries from nowhere are appearing (Anshe Chung Becomes First Virtual World Millionaire), the virtual 3D world is becoming a paradigm for navigating complex informations (3BVillages).

Real money and serious economies are more and more interested in the phenomenon, that is all the discussions on the proposal for virtual worlds earnings taxation. Mainstream dinosaurs also are more attentive now, Reuters opening the way, but NBC also (NBC Universal in Second Life).

Video games are getting curious about this, and it's no surprise the first to put the head in is Nintendo (Nintendo’s Fils-Aime on Wii and Second Life); obviously we cannot forget two big names on the IT business looking to find, pardon me for this, a second life like Sun Microsystems and IBM. The last to jump in is Autodesk, makers of 3D software as Maya and 3D Max and Autocad (Cyberia Rising: Autodesk Enters Second Life).

Not to forget the users, the audience if you prefere, with the recent exponential growth of residents now well above the million figure.

So everything looks bright and shining. Well, sort of. There's still a lot to do, and this because maybe all of this hype has just took the Linden guys with surprise. Recently attacks to the grid (this is the name of the underlying systema sustaining SL) are multiplying, lag times and bugs are a recurring matters, new residents find it difficult to understand the rules of the game, journalists are stressed out because they have to attend press conferences in a virtual world in a place they don't know now that they just started to understand how email clients work, etc. etc.

Linden has some fault too, mainly in organizing things, and communicating moves, the last of which is a reboot of the grid just at quite the same time Reuters was planning to interview Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, or when the Linden marketing vice president David Fleck told the Times of London that Linden Lab was open to an initial public offering (IPO) or a sale before Linden Lab Chief Executive Philip Rosedale denied this very same affirmartion (and now Fleck is no more on the boat).

A lot of work to do, then. Things are moving fast and it's not easy to keep the pace, we're all experiencing the same problem and Linden Lab is no exception (obviously at different levels, alas I'm not Linden Lab).

So maybe it's time to take a week end off, and recollect all ideas. The following is my wish list for Second Life improvements, again I'm not Linden Lab and maybe this is just a sterile essay, maybe we can sort some gold out of the garbage; feel free to add your items to the list via the comment form.

What I want to see in SL

• 3D objects import, from Maya, 3D Max, you-name-it (admit it, 3D creation in SL is a pain in the neck)
• VoIP calls from within SL to RL (via Skype, Gizmo, etc.)
• Instant Messaging from within SL to outside web world
• More video standards support
• Adobe Flash support
• Search engines searching for content in SL
• SL map improvement (please, please, please) within SL and outside it (a SL Google Maps version, maybe?)