I was astonished by the headline — the amount of money involved is perhaps 10 times what was spent developing World of Warcraft, it's huge. Second Life managed to see of the better-funded There, but with 1,000,000,000 Euros behind it, this "Second Life rival" ought to be able to squish SL itself like a bug. The sub-headline says it has backing from Virgin, which means it stands a good chance of — hey, just a moment, what's that about iTunes?
Reading the article, it transpires that the product being described is not a Second Life rival at all. It really is nothing of the sort. It's an online games store with a 3D interface (and, according to the developers, a 2D interface as well). It may have some kind of Home lobby functionality, or even some built-in games, but on the whole it seems to be basically a shop.
So why is the Independent on Sunday describing it as a Second Life rival? Clearly they expect readers to have heard of Second Life, which is good (for Second Life), but also clearly they have no idea what Second Life actually is.
They just don't get it.