If Japanese digital marketing company Transcosmos, Inc. has anything to say about it, Second Life will soon have stiff competition in Japan - meet-me, their answer to Second Life and designed with a Japanese audience in mind, will be opening in December. Saying that the independent and free-spirited nature of Second Life doesn't appeal to Japanese sensibilities, Transcosmos hopes this new metaverse will become a more 'Japanese' alternative to places like Second Life:

Kunimasa Hamaoka, who oversees "meet-me" at digital marketing company Transcosmos Inc., is banking on the cultural differences between Japanese and Americans to compete against the world's top virtual community.

Japanese are so well-behaved and conformist, he says, they would prefer a more predictable and secure virtual environment over the free-spirited anything-goes of "Second Life," created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab ....

Hamaoka said he is determined to make "meet-me" a strictly Japanese hit, although foreign tourists are welcome visitors.

"This will be a place where people can enjoy themselves with a sense of safety — like Disneyland," he said. "There's total freedom to act in 'Second Life,' which requires individual responsibility. It's very American. Almost everything is OK, including evil."

Will meet-me become a media darling like Second Life? Let's hope not: one Second Life is more than enough for the whole of the world's mainstream media.

Subdued Virtual World for Japan [AP via Worlds In Motion] (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)