This program truly is quite fascinating. In 2006 and 2007, the signup figures for SL shot exponentially for the sky as users spread the word of’t with the novelty of evolving into the semantic web. Dave and Max threw mention of this SNS megalith a few months ago - though I only recently decided to have another look-see for myself. To note that it’s been around since the end of 2003! It seems to have a shaky copyright protection on it, though it boasts open-source principles and dynamic user-generated work about it.
And so I give you : Second Life
Second Life® is a 3-D virtual world created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.
From the moment you enter the World you’ll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you’ve explored a bit, perhaps you’ll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.
You’ll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents. Because Residents retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents.
As a social network tool, the success of SL can be easily measured by its popularity. Before its users lies an amazing user-generated world where the intellectual property of each user (and literally, the virtual property that one can create in SL) is worth its weight in real US Dollars. One can make a fulltime living on their interaction and contribution to this virtual world as they go about performing tasks in different environments (of which are host to real-time advertising by sponsoring corporates). While by late 2008 standards, the interface looks a little bit rubbish out-dated, the fundamental interactive qualities seem to suffice.
As I bumptiously stumbled about the land a bit (stumbling being a good word for’t, as the controls are quite rubbish disorienting and awkward. Function and form are not well weighted thus far. There was a kind helper-character chatting away (a SL volunteer to show the newbies around) and a few people walking into walls. After figuring out how to walk a little better, I abandoned my awkward sitting position next to the wall in the corner to explore. Characters of all shapes and sizes popped up around me as I looked about - the size of the SL arena quite overwhelming. I task-switched after a while to see that the bandwidth usage was rather overwhelming too :(
Then I began to ponder…this all seems quite familiar. Has anyone ever seen Habbo? A similar concept to SL: Habbo is also a user-generated world where each person can customise their own appearance to infinite ends, buy and sell virtual objects and properties and ”throw parties” (to which I didn’t jump for joy as much as others might).
Having two samples of this branding of SNS, I can draw a few biased conclusions!
—> They are no more than glorified chatrooms of olde with a pleasant user interface.
—> The users strangely buy into the idea that sentiment for virtual objects is rebatable in real-life money.
—> You can buy (with real money) your own private regions. Wait. We have a tool that is designed for interacting with other people, yet money buys you an exclusive virtual domain?
—> Logs show that little user interface update activity has taken place over the years of their existence.
—> The developers are, however, constantly moving about the worlds // fixing bugs and constantly noting functionality issues
—> The infrastructure in place is not being utilised as well as it could be. The possibilities really are endless - to assemble people from across the globe of similar interests to chitter chat all day long? Nod nod.
If it is to be seen as a glorified chat room, however, the global networking prospect shines some healthy light back onto SL. The website boasts that one is able to meet ”like minds” in this world that you can obviously base your activities and discussions around. If millions of dollars are exchanged on this tool (and apparently business agreements parallel to our real life also take place), I should naturally be quite intrigued. Then I began to think about the ”like minds” I would encounter on SL. I then evaluated and flattered myself simultaneuosly. Throwing a few high-horsed stereotypes at the user demographic, I pondered :
Can you picture Dave Duarte sititng in front of his Mac, playing SL and preaching about Nomadic Marketing?
Can you picture Al Gore chanting about the environment and politics?
Can you picture Ken Robinson sitting on a park bench, typing away about modern education?
Can you picture anyone interesting at all, besides a few eccentric hippies and lonely geeks? The content veracity then took a joy ride into the distance.
The range of appearances was quite daunting to my anthropocentric side. The virtual appearance vs physical appearance paradox holds a rather interesting study on the personalities of different individuals and how they might try to buffer a superficial look to their peers to evoke different perceptions as to who they really are. Of course, anonymity dynamics on the internet has baffled us for years. This could indirectly serve the purpose of meeting non-like minded individuals in the world as you randomly stumble across them - for which can be a good thing.
When evaluating the intention of the SL program to its users (other than for profits) and thinking more about the user demographics, I found that the world was host to a large number of digital immigrants. For those scratching heads: these are people that are not native to the socio-technological ways of this generation, but have learned and adopted the ways in the course of their lifetime. We all know how one generation often has a conflictual understanding of the next - simply because they are conditioned differently. It feels as if these virtual worlds are forced innovations of an ”obsolete” generation for the digital natives. How about an alternative intention : with a bit of work, these worlds have a Second Chance at becoming far more popular than previously anticipated. Though the worlds are so large and complex already, the developers could implement their open source principals more directly to achieve a larger demographic scope by improving the 
functionality a whole lot more. The words ”imagine a world” can be clubbed aside for virtual worlds that are a simple pleasure to explore on a daily basis. Imagine real communites and real virtual-projections of yourself interacting in less superficial events and forums. Imagine attending lectures and conferences in this world.
I dunno. A line needs to be drawn between the purpose of escapism and more serious possibilities.
The infrastructure is already there.
