Barrack Obama in his speech in Germany – Heralded – People of the World, we are all citizens of the world he said.
Connecting to people all over the world is becoming more real everyday and technologies that are spawning within and from virtual worlds make these connections tangible and REAL.
The hype that surrounded Second Life has diminished – hype can last for so long, however because of the hype entrepreneurs the life blood of business innovation, have seized the opportunities that Second Life offered and are now delivering platforms, applications and services that lead to global citizens working intimately together across distances that previously were unimaginable.
Fully animated avatars that have been perceived as impostors, pretenders of who they really are, are being replaced with Fully Animated Avatars of who you really are, if in business then who you are on LinkedIn, if more social, then who you are on Facebook. One such platform is Twinity
It is now time for Business, corporates companies all over the world to realize that Virtual World Technology is Real, Virtual Worlds coupled with Web 2.0 social applications and existing technologies are allowing for connectivity that could mean less travel, less cost, less time away from families, less harm to the environment, even less fatigue.
I recently was told of how IBM’s implementation of virtual worlds within IBM had achieved greater collaboration and I can only conclude that this has lead to alot less expenditure by IBM and decisions made faster, without the need to travel away from love ones.
Victor Keegan of The Guardian wrote an article titled We’ll all be citizens of the virtual world he concluded with….
Virtual worlds are only just beginning. During a period of financial collapse and worries about global warming, they could prove an ideal safe haven.
I suggest to you virtual wolds have begun – time is now for business to embrace and not wait.
You can be a real citizen in a Virtual World.
APLINK - itsReal 
I really doubt global warming has anything to do with virtual worlds, and spending time in a virtual world won’t solve the real life enviroment issues. Virtual worlds are becoming more mainstream and people are finding new interesting ways to make use of this nex technology but this is only the beginning. More and more new virtual worlds are making their entry, they vary from worlds for kids to game enviroments places for science and education. The next following years will be interesting to see how they further evolve and people make new use of them. As for the global warming that is something entirely different.
indeed I completely agree but if more people conducted meetings in virtual worlds then it would surely have an impact on the need to travel