Warren Ellis is featured on the Reuters site talking about the contradiction of a virtual world groaning under the weight of its popularity whilst that same world contains massive tracts of regularly uninhabited buildings.

If you avoid the casino / nightclub / sex club areas then odds are you aren’t going to see great crowds of avatars. It’s a result of the current challenges for SL with lag / concurrency and bandwidth. If you can only fit 50-100 avatars on a sim then you’re never going to see crowding unless it’s in a very confined space – like a nightclub. So although the main drawcards may be music, dancing, sex (or all three) in those areas, the fourth may be the enhanced feeling of being part of a group.

One of the strengths of SL however is the communities of interest that develop – even on a geographical basis. There’s not a homogenous Australian community in SL but the relatively small number of active Aussies means that we do tend to meet together more often. Do you feel you’re part of a community in SL? If so, tell us all about it.