Second Life no more?

So, the Guardian reports that Reuters reports (do you see the chain?) that they have pulled out of the virtual world 'Second Life'. This seems to be a recent trend as whilst the 'world' (I refrain from calling it a game) gets a lot of publicity through apparently "newsworthy" stories i.e. adultery there is an increasing number of businesses that are leaving. It seems they got into the 'world' thinking it was the .com boom all over again and have now found out that it is actually really difficult to make money and have left.....So is this the end for virtual worlds?

NO

According to a Reuters reporter they left Second Life because:
"I wasn't in Second Life to play, I was there on assignment for Reuters. The login server would crash. I'd try to reach sources, but Second Life's IM window would hang on "waiting" all day when trying to figure out who was online. "Teleports" -- the ability to move from point to point anywhere in Second Life -- would stop working and I'd get locked out of my own office. These weren't one-offs, they were my daily, first-hand, happens-all-the-time experiences. For all its bugs, Second Life is tolerable as a playground, but enterprise users will never and should never use it for business. Re-focus on the core mission: Keeping the hobbyists happy and converting potential recruits into hardcore (read: fees-paying) users."

I can see the 'Second Life Boom' (TM of IP Freely) ending quick sharpish unless they sort out the technical issues but quite simply it's success along with World of Warcraft etc have show that there is potential and opens the market for other better thought our 'worlds'.