_Sergey_:

Kostya, where do you see opportunities for developers in SL?

I will ignore actual development efforts required to build and maintain virtual world grid, users and related technologies, since these developments would be considered 'real world".  Instead I will concentrate only on opportunities within the virtual worlds themselves.

The opportunities in SL are no different from RL for a large part of the development.  Anything from content and application creation to web design and software architecture would be present in SL.

Majority of web applications can be migrated to SL to provide users with more realistic experience. The difference is whether the technologies of today (like HTML, ASP, PHP, JSP, etc.) used to display information to the user on a web page will be replaced by new technologies of the virtual worlds.

I work in the travel industry and I can see how travel companies can utilize SL to sell to and support their customers with great success.  In fact, one of the islands is owned by a travel company called STA Travel (http://www.virtualstatravel.com/).  A lot of development effort went into programming for the interfaces and all the applications that went behind their virtual presence.