3W Design Group - Media

If your first life isn’t quite what you hoped it would be and you don’t want to wait to be reincarnated to have another crack at your true potential, I have a solution - Second Life.

According to Wikipedia.org: “Second Life (abbreviated to SL) is an Internet-based virtual world which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. Developed by Linden Lab, a downloadable client program enables users to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse”.

If that defination is a bit jargon-esque, I have a simpler explanation. In Second Life you exist in a parallel universe much like you do in The Sims, the polpular computer game created in 1997 by Will Wright. And although The Sims is considered a computer game, its goal isn’t so much to win anything as it is to lead a successful life in a virtual community. The same is true in Second Life. The difference is that the world in Second Life takes place on the Internet and its’ digital characteristics have been created not by a software engineer, but by the online users themselves.
Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale is the former CTO of Real Networks and the developer of Second Life. He sees his creation as less of a game and more as a parallel reality where people live, work, socialize and make money. It’s the last two words - make money - that has caused businesses both small and large to sit up and pay attention.

Here are some interesting Second Life benchmarks:

• Resident Anshe Chung (whose real name is Ailin Graef) announced in November 2006 that she had become the first avatar to amass a net worth exceeding one million US dollars from activities she earned inside the virtual world of Second Life. She made money by designing custom animations, creating virtual real estate, and providing virtual escort and erotic services among other things.

• Boingboing.net announced that Sweden will be the first country to open an embassy in Second Life.

• ABN Amro, a Dutch bank, recently opened an office in Second Life.

• In BusinessWeek writer Gemma Simpson announced that Vodafone is expanding its presence in Second Life by offering “virtual handsets and an instant messaging service, (Vodafone) the mobile operator will expand beyond its teaser island in the Internet-based virtual world. The operator will offer virtual handsets which enable users to contact one other in the virtual world and an SMS instant messaging service”.

Now that your brain is about to explode thinking of the added pressure you will now have to not only succeed in this world but to also succeed in a virtual world, I will wrap up my post.

Even more versions of metaverses are on their way. But fear not, you still have time to learn how to exist in this new reality. I have linked to some recent articles on this virtual phenomonen that will help you grasp the here and now of Second Life. And if after reading about yet another technology you NEED to master, you decide instead to take a bubble bath, I’ll understand. Just remember, this is a great time not to be dead!

U.S. News & World Report
Putting a Second Life First
By David LaGesse

Fortune Magazine
Second Life: It’s not a game
by David Kirkpatrick

C/NET News
Sundance holds screening in ‘Second Life’ for first time
by Michele Meyers