Why can't your Second Life avatar walk around in some other online 3D community or Microsoft Virtual Earth (pictured)? Because the world is lacking the standards that would enable such a level of interoperability.

That, however, will not be the case for much longer if its up to IBM and Linden Labs. Today the two companies signed a partnership that will seek to create open standards for not only interoperability, but also secure transactions and increased platform stability.

11 Oct 2007

The partnership points out that 3D worlds still have a long way to go before they approach the ubiquity of the browser-based internet. Second Life may not have any aspirations to create the 3D internet, but it could certainly benefit from the standards that the IBM partnership seeks to create.

A Second Life avatar wanders around the (new) vnunet San Francisco office in San Francisco. Office image generated by Microsoft Virtual Earth.