The notion of a metaverse has long fascinated geeks. The idea of "avatars" — three-dimensional representations of the self rendered in pixels, often fantastical or surreal in nature — wandering through a computer-generated environment has been explored in the science-fiction novels of Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling, among others. The Matrix trilogy introduced the idea at multiplexes from coast to coast.

And yet unreal worlds have never taken off in actual reality. Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, once showed me screens at the headquarters of his company, Linden Lab, which monitored in real time the number of people logging in. They peaked at 50,000, the maximum simultaneous capacity of its servers. That's not a virtual world; that's a midsized town.

Anecdotally, many of Second Life's users are there for virtual sex. (The company has banned gambling, so there's little other reason to go there.) The PG-rated Lively, censored by Google, did not even have that; its only draw was innocuous chat, with the occasional subversive attempt by users at raciness.

No wonder that news organizations, drawn by the visual appeal of the service's 3D graphics, aren't writing stories about Second Life anymore. Reuters, at the height of the frenzy, opened up a bureau; its Second Life correspondent stopped filing copy since September, having left to write for a blog, and the wire service has not replaced him.

The most recent noise to come out of Second Life has been an uproar over price hikes. Second Life users periodically hold colorful protests in the virtual world — probably the most entertaining thing that ever happens there — over this new rule or that new rule. They are likely to become more frequent, as Linden Lab, to survive, focuses on squeezing more revenue out of its existing customers, who pay the company "taxes" on their virtual real estate and convert real money into the company's imaginary currency, Linden dollars.

Online 3D environments are not a fad; millions inhabit them for hours, sometimes days at a time. But they do so in networked videogames like World of Warcraft, where there's a clear purpose to being there — even if it's just having fun and wasting time. Second Life, Lively, and virtual worlds like them amount to glorified chat rooms, and while chatting is a fundamental human activity, it's hard for anyoen to make money on it.

An index of commercial sex. Within a few months of Lively permitting fantasy prostitution, the data gleaned from what kinds of sex, with what genders of avatars, and for how much would start to stack up server-side. Wouldn't this data, properly analyzed, be a boon to Internet-based escorts who use AdWords to promote their business?

A clean, well-lit place to cruise. Virtual worlds run on the same principal as Vegas: Build something friendly yet sexy, and let the users pretend they're not there to get turned on. Full-on brothels and strip clubs may not even result in much feigned sexual activity within Lively, but they will give users a specific place to bring their sex talk — one that other users can avoid if they choose.

"But what about the children?" They already have the kids-only virtual world Club Penguin. And MySpace chat. If they have access to Craigslist, the kids already know what prostitution looks like.

We don't allow nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material. This includes making sexual advances toward other users.

Of course, how exactly to you define "nudity" when you're talking about animated avatars? Of course, you can hug all you want, but drawing the line between friendly embrace and creepy come-on is not something that can be algorithmically determined. It's obvious that the company is desperate to avoid any publicity that associates it with anything related to sex. Which is a shame, because if there's anything more "mainstream" than the sexual reproduction which perpetuates our species, I'd like to know what it is. Where do Larry and Sergey think the Kinderplex's overpriced clientele come from? (Photos by rcooper)

In our user research, we’ve been amazed at how much more poignant it is to receive an animated hug than seeing the text “[[hug]]”.

In the promotional video, the characters looke a bit like the anime-styled Yahoo Avatars. I can only hope Google's thought to include leather-daddy apparel, having released the product during Pride month.