Primer on SecondLife.com
SecondLife.com is a virtual world where people can use their computers to log onto a three-dimensional graphical environment. To access this virtual world, a user installs a special virtual world browser on their computer that allows them to log into Second Life. When they create their login for Second Life they also choose a small graphical version of themselves which they can use to move around in the virtual world. This small graphical persona is called an avatar. Users can then move around the virtual world of Second Life using their computer keyboard and mouse to walk, run, and even fly.
Second Life is not a video game in that there are no specific activities to do and there are no prizes to win. The high point of Second Life is that it is just an open environment where people can make connections with other people in almost any area of interest. In Second Life there is an extensive Star Trek community, an extensive educational community, and inevitably an extensive alternative sexual community. Some businesses have even used the virtual world of Second Life as a location for virtual conferences.
During Second Life’s heyday, there were a million and half registered users and an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people from around the world logged into this virtual world at any given time. However, due to the bad regulatory and management decisions made by Linden Lab, this population has fallen to fraction of what it once was.
Once logged in to Second Life, you could use the Search feature to find your area of interest and then use the Teleport function to allow your avatar to travel to thousands of virtual world locations. The idea was that you could choose your area of interest and visit virtual locations where you could meet and interact with other people who enjoyed your topic. The one feature that made Second Life more than just a text based chat room was that you could choose who you would communicate with based on the physical proximity of avatars using text chat or talking over voice.
One fascinating feature of Second Life is that almost all of the virtual environments in Second Life were created by the system users. Second Life provides a basic toolkit of spheres and cubes, and other shapes, a way to import and apply images, and a scripting language to control objects in an automated way. Using these very basic tools, it was amazing the variety and complexity of the virtual environments that users had created. In addition to the virtual environment of Second Life, users could shape the form of their own avatar and make clothing and accessories for their avatars to wear.
Unfortunately, most of the interesting locations to visit in Second Life are no longer there due to Linden Lab’s overpriced virtual land taxes costing $300.00 or more per month. Further, most of Second Life’s virtual world vendors of have left due to Linden Lab’s draconian enforcement of copyright infringement laws.