I have one information pipe coming into my Oakland home, just one – and it carries digital television, a VOIP landline, and all my IP traffic, ranging from iTunes downloads to every motion of my Second Life avatar (sometimes, it does all of this concurrently). I doubt the people who built out the cable television network in the 1960s and 1970s saw all that data in the copper they were unspooling. You may know that any cable subscriber in Oakland is a Comcast subscriber – and Comcast, in turn, is a Millions of Us client.

Comcastic! Island launched today, and appropriately enough, it’s poised to be a major new in-world entertainment destination. It’s packed with races, rides, giveaways, gizmos and other attractions. There’s a very cool top-secret lab (try to find it!) that lets visitors engage in the kind of ‚Äúmad science‚Äù featured in Comcast’s TV campaign for broadband. It’s being touted in the media as a theme park, and that’s a pretty apt description. We’re also promised a calendar of real-life and virtual world music performances.

Second Life residents will benefit from the addition of all this great in-world content, but it’s in Comcast’s interest to nurture the kind of data traffic that virtual worlds create. Our partners at One to One Interactive and Comcast recognized the inherent wisdom of joining the community….and we think you’ll be endlessly entertained by the results of our collaboration.