June 2007 — News
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Second Life: Do You Need One? (Part 1)
Second Life appears to be the biggest online community to hit the Internet in recent times. It's a 3D digital world, imagined, created, and owned by its residents, which number more than 7 million from more than 100 countries at the time of this writing. It's not a site that most K-12 educators would consider using, as Second Life requires residents in its main grid to be at least 18. A number of businesses, universities, libraries, museums, and a few educational organizations that cater to K-12 have joined Second Life, and at least one middle school, Suffern Middle School (NY). As a newbie, I wondered what the excitement is all about and decided to explore. What I found was that reading about Second Life and actually experiencing it are a world apart.
What's Second Life?
Second Life (SL) was started by Linden Lab in 2003. At first glance, it appears to be one of those massive multiplayer online role-playing games, minus the aspect of winning or losing. However, the short video Introduction to Second Life will dispel that. SL differs in that residents have near unlimited freedom to create and experience whatever they want as long as they agree to its terms of use and community standards. Just like in your real-life, you can hear the wind blowing, waves crashing the shore, the call of birds, horses whinnying, people talking, and music playing. I discovered the sun goes down at night, and you see the stars. However, if you don't like moving around in the dark, you can force the Sun to come up. You can have fun with games, puzzles, and contests and hang out with friends in casinos, dance clubs, shopping malls, or movie theaters. You can attend special events like fashion shows or art openings and even go to a space station or vampire castle.
A more serious side of SL takes place in the section for business and education, where there are opportunities for collaboration, training, distance learning, media studies, simulation, and marketing. There is a full working economy with transactions carried out in Linden Dollars. So there's real money to be made in the Marketplace. People actually earn part or all of their real-life income from such businesses as party and wedding planning, tattooing, auto manufacturing, fashion and jewelry designing, real estate development, architectural design, bodyguarding, publishing, and private investigation.
Major businesses like Adidas, American Apparel, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Warner Bros. have established their presence in Second Life with virtual office spaces to show off images of their products and hold virtual meetings. NASA has a presence; so does Major League Baseball with its virtual stadium.