Following up his speculation that virtual worlds are heading for a severe downturn, The Digital Space Commons president and CEO Bruce Damer has outlined several ideas for creating a healthy and sustainable virtual worlds industry and promoting mainstream adoption.

He suggests that "small worlds" might eventually dominate the space, defining small worlds platforms as "easy to install and run programs or plug-ins serving lightweight spaces hosting a small number of users. The small worlds would exist parallel to the web, embedded in and drawing traffic from social networking sites. This would contrast more traditional virtual worlds, or "big grid-iron" worlds as Damer describes them, which exist in isolation from the web.

Damer believes that the industry should concentrate on the platform with the biggest footprint of potential adopters: "Social interaction both random and purposeful is the big user footprint available to virtual worlds especially when embedded into high-trafficked web-based social networks."

He adds that the platform also has to have the lowest barrier: "The small world form factor using already ubiquitous front end technology would naturally be the lowest barrier to entry to these users."

Though Damer recognizes that builder behind large grid-based virtual worlds with proprietary and heavy browser technology will likely not be interested in this approach, he notes, "The big grid-iron worlds approach may be enough sustain a company or two, but this is not sufficient to create a healthy industry."

He concludes: "One could envision inviting key players to a common poker game where the payout at the end of the evening might be a common small world platform tuned to the biggest user footprint and adopted by the biggest trafficked social networks? The stakes in this game are a new medium and a healthy industry and… social virtual worlds everywhere!"