If you hunt around the SLogosphere at all, and particularly the detractors of SL, you are bound to come across the comment "SL is just IRC with 3D graphics" or "SL is just a giant chat room with a nice interface." Because it was still in my RSS feed memory, here's a link to Mitch Wagner's take on it.

Without wishing to take away from the experiences of those, like me, who find SL to be so much more, I recently had an experience that left me wondering just how bad it would be if SL was just chat + 3D. One of the things I do in SL is teach. I have been working with one student for almost a year on a range of topics, and on Monday she was having technical issues at home, so we had the class in an IM client rather than SL. At one level - text based exchange of information - it should have been identical. But, it wasn't, for either of us. That feeling of connection, the visual presence just wasn't there, and the class was, to both of us I think, awkward and unsatisfactory.

So, what do you think, dear readers? In these last few hours before SL comes back - is SL just chat + 3D? Is that +3D important to you? If it's more than that, what extra does SL have?