遊園地化する仮想地球

▼Google moves into virtual worlds　（BUSINESS 2.0 > CNN Money.com）
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/11/technology/business2_futureboy_0511/index.htm

The notion that you can create objects and buildings and place them in a virtual world makes Google Earth sounds less like a mapping tool and more like a metaverse. What's a metaverse? Science fiction writer Neal Stephenson introduced the term in his seminal 1992 novel, Snow Crash. The metaverse was Stephenson's name for a virtual world where his characters play and do business. It was a black ball 1.6 times the size of Earth, with a giant street running around its equator.

In Stephenson's novel, millions of users uploaded customized "avatars," or virtual personalities, and strolled the street, entering shops and exclusive nightclubs, conversing and trading with the metaverse's other denizens. It was, in effect, a 3-D version of the web.

（中略）

Where will it end? Google Earth general manager John Hanke has said that Google Earth was partly inspired by Snow Crash's metaverse. At a recent Silicon Valley conference, he described it as a "3-D virtual world."

　BUSINESS 2.0 ってのはけっこうお茶目な媒体で、たまにニヤリとさせられる。こんなところでニール・スティーヴンスンの名にお目にかかろうとは。"Google Earth was partly inspired by Snow Crash's metaverse"ってのはホントかねえ？　まあ、Google の人が言ってるんだから、たぶんそうなんだろう。

　百年もしないうちに、Google Earth はメタヴァースどころか、ダイアスパーになってたりしてね。