Is this what it’s all about?
Aug 4th, 2006 by ShaunO
a few days after getting a Second Life…
Bit tired today.. must have been all that dancing at Club128 in Second Life last night..
On a more serious note - but not too serious - I thought I might start doing some follow-up posts to my original Second Life post.
So what is this all about? There are 370,000 [1] residents, 3000-5000 of them online at any given time, and a virtual world covering some 20,000 acres [2] (about 80 square kilometres, or 8192 hectares, or 8,192,0000 square metres - 1 acre = 4096m2 in Second Life).
So what are they (we) all doing in this ‘thing’? Well having spent a few hours over the past week wandering about, building stuff, and generally becoming familiar with this ‘new world’ my impression is that the answer to that original question is - whatever they want to do.
Some people use it as a sophisticated social/chat system, some as a place to build stuff and express their creativity (houses, clothes, gestures, in-world games, the list goes on and on). Others apparently use it as a gaming system, or a simulation system (to drive, skydive or whatever) and as Linden Labs wants you to believe many use it ‘to do business’[3]. Virtual Worlds Review of Second Life comments that:
“Second Life’s often bizarre “waking dream” atmosphere may appeal more to creative artist and techie folks than to the casual social chatter”
Finally for today, a number of commentators are talking around the ‘whether it’s important’ question. Robert Fuller has his take the business model at play - although I suspect he forgot to read the fine print on IP rights in Second Life. CC Chapman has varying commentary on Second Life and this post comments on a ‘non-believers’ post.. Im not going to ‘buy into’ this debate until I’ve had a closer look…
Current Press Links
Slices of life in a parallel universe - The Guardian
Is virtual life better than reality - CBS News
Reference Links
1. What is Second Life? from Second Life
2. The World from Second Life
3. The Marketplace from Second Life
[Update: 17Aug2006]
The next in this ’series’ is ‘Is this about Community?’