Yesterday I got curious about a virtual world competitor to Second Life(R), known simply as "There". After perusing the FAQ and Developer FAQ, I'm convinced that I chose the right virtual world. Here's why:
First off, it's Windows-only. No Mac or Linux client at all, so you know it's already a small world. Secondly, by default you can't build anything at all. You need to join a "developer's program", where your creation is subject to approval by a staff. Also, many features that you get in Second Life such as Voice Chat, landmarks and others that you get for free, aren't available to basic members. But the biggest dealbreaker for me(and certainly a lot of other people), is that There charges money for creating stuff, and you won't turn a profit until you sell the item at least ten times.
It's not all bad for There, though. They have a fixed offline schedule, so no unexpected outages. Plus you can join up to fifty groups, twice as many as in SL. And for teens, they're not relegated to a "teen grid". However the inclusion of teens is a big reason why There has such rigorous restrictions, which actually makes me glad SL did make the teen grid. Heck, the teen grid is actually better than There.
So in conclusion, I can't recommend There as a good virtual world for anybody. It's a Second Life look-alike on the surface, but it's too PG-13 to be a Second Life competitor. Perhaps I'll start searching around for other virtual worlds and see what's good and what's not. Don't get me wrong, I still love SL but I think it would be a good idea to see what else is out there. Maybe I'll make my search into a blog category.