General

iTunes Store+ Wii Fit + Nike+

Even though I’m in the middle of a personal exodus from this particular virtual world, I found MacNN’s headline, Will Apple open a store in Second Life?, a bit misleading. Sure the article discusses Second Life, however, its main focus is on a patent filed by Apple Computer that resembles a virtual world with avatars and a shopping experience. As expected, eWorld (a predecessor to AOL), is noted in the article.

Long time readers know that I exist in many virtual worlds and game worlds, and am far more patient than my fellow avatars when it comes to dealing with early prototypes and concepts.

I figured I’d write a misleading headline as well, but only to illustrate how my brain works.

In the upcoming release of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV, is a utility that enables a player to tag a song in the game, and later purchase it from Amazon.com. Both the Playstation 3 and Xbox have stores to purchase media such as songs and videos.

It wouldn’t be hard to fantasize that Apple could take the patent and explore things like making the iTunes Store part of something that lives on the Nintendo Wii– perhaps relating to any fitness title; Wii Sports or the upcoming Wii Fit. Apple already has a relationship with Nike, and the dots aren’t that hard to connect to see an iTMS + Wii + Nike -styled ‘virtual’ interface in a seemingly normal environment.

Generally, we all know how Second Life has been hyped and criticized, from success and failed corporate initiatives, to the silly social commentary people make about furries, flying penises, and of course, ‘getting a first life’. An Apple Store inside of Second Life wouldn’t be an Apple experience at all– in fact, I can only run Second Life on my Windows machines now, as its performance on Apple is the worst.

However, imagining a place (with avatars or not), directly tying together my fitness, my shoes, and some non-’weird’ and well-performing environment (a Nintendo is quite normal and understood), is not so terribly hard to do.

MacNN, I dig you guys, but that headline sucked.

What say you, infocalyptics?

© 2008 infocalypse.