Virtually you

That’s me in the fetching blue jacket.

Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can ¬– you can have a alternative persona. What would you like to be? With Second Life secondlife.com, you can!

Second Life was launched by San Francisco-based Lindon Labs in 2000 with backing from the founders of eBay and Amazon, Second Life is taking off with nearly one and half million members. Their website describes it as ”a 3D online digital world imagined, created and owned by its residents.”

As Wikipedia describes it “Second Life is one of several virtual worlds that have been inspired by the science fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, and the Cyberpunk literary movement. The stated goal of Linden Labs is to create a world like the metaverse described in the novel Snow Crash, a user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate. Despite its prominence, it has notable competitors, among them Active Worlds, considered by some to be the founding company of the 3D internet concept in 1997, There and newcomers such as Entropia Universe and the Dotsoul Cyberpark.”
So there you are, a fully-fledged virtual economy. It has it’s own currency (currently L$274 is equal to US$1) so where does virtual and real world stop and start? Participants buy Linden dollars with their real-world credit cards and use them to buy Second Life “land” and goods. And you can trade your Linden dollars back into real US dollars. Over US$150 million is traded every month.

I thought I’d take Second Life for a road test. Basic membership is free. You choose your own first name but the site provides list of last names from which you have to select. I chose Derek Drumbeat . You then give further details and then you can download the client program (23MB for Windows PCs and 53MB for a Mac.

You are warned about bad behaviour when you first log on and are told that you will be expelled from the community if you do behave anti-socially.

I found my first visit a strange experience. First of all I could select my appearance: skin colour, clothes, build etc. This is known as an “avatar” a computer-generated 3D human look alike. Then I seem to “appear” amongst a lot of other members in a virtual public space – rather like a town square ( I was one of over 8,000 members on at that time). As a first step I said “Hi” to someone and to my surprise they replied (you type in your messages).

I had a quick look round. There are areas for all kinds of activities ¬– the technology lets people create objects from scratch; residents can build anything they can imagine, from services to candles that burn down to pools of wax. You can visit (and set-up) virtual nightclubs, churches, attend auctions and buy virtual real estate.

If you want to dig deep into Second Life you can, but you’ll have to put quite a bit of effort into it. It’s not intuitive and it’s probably not for computer newbies.

I have looked at a discussion forum devoted to Second Life and views seem to be mixed:

“I'm a complete newbie to this SL stuff, but as a programmer in the ‘real’ world, I hope I can find something useful to do in this new world. Maybe I'll make a buck!” Achilles Wheels

“I started Second life about a year and a half ago. Back then, it was a big deal to get 2000 people on at once. Today I saw over 12,000. I recently opened a SL Synagogue . It is something I have wanted to do for a long time. The feedback so far has been great! It's an honor to have people come and "exist happily" in an atmosphere you created. Early on , I played Live violin concerts, ran a lot of ‘Bohemian’ type "hang out" events... (can you feel the productivity?) . I still have a wall of art that is 90m high. It's so easy to become entranced and then addicted to this, so my advice... learn how to LOG OFF, and don’t forget your first life. Second life will be there when you get home.” BethOdets

“As a fairly computer savvy person with a new Sony Vaio and a high-speed connection, SL was slow, clummsy, and boring. The premise is cool, interacting with other characters in real time. But the graphics are that of a mid-'90s video game. Call me in 20 years when you can do a virtual walk through the actual streets of Manhattan or London, when it looks real, then I'll get interested. Currently, there is nothing to do in SL other than walk past virtual neon billboards or virtual people trying to look hip. If I want that, I'll go to my local mall or club. Every time I've gotten on SL, I've always thought to myself, "I need to get a real life." Radiohead

Anyway, how will it go, I think it’ll go from bizarre. Look at this:

I get a taste of the lack of regulation. Logging in to Second Life after a few days off, I see that someone has erected a bunch of buildings on my avatar Rob Cranes's land, which is located in a region called Saeneul. The area was nearly empty when I arrived, but now I'm surrounded by Greek temples under construction. So much for my ocean view. Online notes left by one "Amy Stork" explain that the "Saeneul Residents Association" is building an amphitheater complex, and "your plot is smack bang in the middle." She's "confident that we can find a *much* better plot for you than this one....Love, Amy xx."

But significantly for Second Life, over 30 real-world brands have setup shop including General Motors, Sony and Adidas. Some commentators say this is a more effective way of reaching its market that traditional advertising media. So the in-world and real-world may be gradually blurring the boundaries.