Second Life - My avatar has descended…
Moving quickly on from my novice experience with Facebook, I’ve now discovered Second Life (SL).
I heard SL CEO Philip Rosedale present at the Stanford AlwaysOn Conference. This was remarkable because he used his SL ‘avatar’ (the descended incarnation of a deity - or the persona you create to represent your SL ‘presence’) to conduct a tour of the virtual reality. Thanks to some nifty translation software he was able to chat with Japanese vistors to SL (only 30% of the 8+ million people who’ve registered are from the US). He also mentioned 5,000 IBM employees have a presence on SL and use it for virtual meetings. Other companies like Dell and Sun Microsystems have online stores. More to the point, there are people making thousands of real dollars selling virtual things to others in SL. Sounds like the early days of Ebay.
So, off I went to check it out. There’s a number of steps to set up a basic free SL account. The first that tripped me up was choosing a name for my avatar. Shouldn’t be a big deal - just find a unique name and off you go, right? Well, SL only allows you certain last names such as Akina, Back, Ebbage, Price. Some odd, some ordinary. I eventually chose Fouroux since it sounded French but when twinned with the first name ‘Three’ had a certain wit. Then my wife suggested mimicking the way phone numbers are given out in the UK, and so I switched to Double3 Fouroux (as in 3340, geddit?).
That out of the way I soon downloaded the app and was off to my first experience of virtual reality. It is like being reborn - into an environment where you have to learn to walk, run, sit, fly, turn, speak and so on. Somewhat frustrating, but the compelling presence of other novice avatars keeps things amusing.
Once the basics are handled (in an environment called ‘Orientation Island’) then one can teleport to other areas of SL. Somewhere in the 30,000+ people online at any one time are fascinating people I can chat to. Somewhere there are instructive conversations, presentations and people with expertise to share. But there’s also a lot of porn, trivia and timewasting. Not much different from RL (Real Life) in that regard.
It’s lilely that SL will appeal to some and not to others. People who communicate for a living (professional speakers, trainers, consultants) should find it a valuable way to extend their RL relationships. And, who knows, when Avian Flu hits, a virtual meeting place might have compelling advantages.
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Great points, and welcome to the virtual world. As one who spends professional time in SL what I’d share is that having a friend in SL first is a great way to find wonderful things to see and do.
One of Linden Labs’ greatest failings is the absence of genuinely useful search function to find Second Life locations that would be of interest - so having a presentation or music event or other gathering to attend allows one to find others with similar interests, and also lets you see what people have done to upgrade their avatars.
Amazing what spending a few dollars for un-Barbie/Ken skin and non-molded hair can do for someone
See the 2nd Life / Metaverse topic in my blog for links and hopefully other helpful stuff. And feel free to IM me via Tynan Clary in SL. I really do believe that SL has a lot of potential for speakers and others doing presentations.
By Susan Reynolds / SL Tynan Clary on 08.20.07 9:56 am
Welcome to the metaverse Ian - I see you’ve ventured in deeply already and now, may be ready for more.
It’s a great environment for networking of all types, but most of all it is a community. Like any community, if you do not get, you may find little satisfaction in participation.
I encourage you, and anyone else, to find your reason to be in SL - a favorite charity, research topic or at least a short list of places to visit, expecting it to take more than one session to make the tour.
Look for me online if you wish - Estaban Graves - I may have already friend-ed you!
By Steven Groves on 08.20.07 11:07 am
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