The blogosphere is abuzz (thanks, Massimo!) with the announcement at the Game Developers Conference of PlayStation Home, their take on shared online virtual worlds. Without having had the time to read about it enough, my guess is that the implementation will be flawless, the number of participants huge, the graphics stunning. And since it will be closed, it will fail to create the third party involvement of Second Life, and it will not give the feeling of rule-changing shift that Linden Lab have given us.
The push that Linden will receive will be towards an acceleration to opening the source of the server platform, since the number of Second Life residents will have to grow faster than Linden Lab is able to sustain it. Already there are evident strains on the infrastructure, which newcomers are not going to tolerate. Opening the servers, after having opened the clients, is going to keep Second Life on the leading edge of virtual world development.