Truth is that Second Life sucks at the moment in a lot of ways, as people never tire of pointing out, but it is an incredible platform to do any manner of thing, good and bad, fantastic and real.

I find both the haters and the boosters kinda tiresome. It's a new platform, akin to the WWW in the mid-90's, and sure, there is a learning curve. Tell you what, though: I got off Orientation Island in an hour, and spent another few hours at Help Island asking questions. Maybe that's why my experience has been so much more positive than S.E. Kramer's.

As voice enters (next month, and it will be optional) and as an increasingly photo-realistic virtual world emerges (in a few years SL will look nothing like it does now), this "metaverse" platform will become more immersive and amazing.

http://www.secondlife.com/events/index.php?date=1159340400&u=d4d1b0cb52fb1ba4952e930e3c4d9a5d Readers, I'd say basically ignore this blog entry and instead check it out yourself--takes about 10 minutes to pick a name and sign up, and download with a fast connection (it's free, but it's easy to use PayPal or a credit card to get funds to buy stuff when you're "inworld"--this is optional, however).

Try to use it in off-peak hours and you won't be bogged down by server overload. It's a ton of fun, full of beatutiful places and creative people. You just have to be choosey from the start, like the Web. And you can't have an attitude.

Feel free to look me up if I'm on, and I'll point you towards some great things to do (follow the link from my name).

The internet expanded to the World Wide Web. There have been long time expectations of expansion of the internet to 3-D. Anyone familiar with science fiction novels such as "Neuromancer" (1984) and "Snow Crash" (1992) knows this.

Second Life, with its in-and-out of world tradable virtual currency, generic platform for creativity, and ready internet accessibility, demonstrates itself as the development of the 3-D Internet for what is called the Metaverse.

Second Life is simple to use but yes, if you want to develop in Second Life, there is some learning. The learning curve for Second Life, though, is much shorter than that of webdevelopment.

To say "Second Life will never go mainstream." is as if to verbalize old sayings like "Nobody needs the internet" or like "The automobile will never replace the horse".

Yes, 3-D movie glasses faded to the background and VRML died a quick death, but truly there has been a failure, by a few people, to recognize the full potential of the technology of Second Life. What exists today in Second Life foreshadows greater things to come as it is a rapidly growing technology.

Discern between fad and hype verses solid technological advancements, which are even already commonly used in other applications, and the picture becomes clear.

This is sooo true. I signed up to try it out because of all the "press events" that take place, and never made it out of the castle, despite hours of trying. grrrr.

I've been a resident of Second Life for over a year and I've seen it change and grow in just that small a time. I'm also a content creator and mildly offended by your views. You visited a few places that most people who are noobs go to. Noob builds, noob sex and noobs dancing and gambling. There is such a vast world in Second Life and a strong content base. We who do make that world, try our best to do new and different things. Personally, I build the private regions and own a store, I also work with a very talented real life programmer. There are many talented pro and hobbyist graphic artists and programmers throughout that world. Yes, Second Life isn't perfect and we constantly curse the Lindens for new bugs etc.. However, from the time I have been a resident, I've seen the population grow from 6,000 users online at one time to 42,000 users.
Maybe instead of randomly teleporting to where the biggest cluster of lag on the mainland is to "make friends", you should have done some searching to find the real gems of SL. Furthermore, part of the beauty of Second Life is if you don't like the way something is done, you can try and make it better.
I foresee more people wanting to be apart of Second Life, it is already huge in europe. Just because American citizens aren't wow'ed by it, doesn't mean it isn't popular elsewhere. Speaking from experience, the French, Dutch and UKers have a massive interest in this platform. To them it is main stream. Even companies like IBM, Sony and NBC own their own little regions. But, no matter how mainstream it ever gets, users within Second Life prefer user created content, content creator's labels, not Nike or the Gap. Why? Because it's Second Life! Because people love creativity, not regurgitated crap.

I disagree with the writer's assessment of Second Life. I have also been there for over a year, and I agree that a comment like "Second Life will never go mainstream" is as shortsighted as someone in the 50's saying "this television thing is a fad." I don't know that Second Life will necessarily be the virtual reality world that becomes THE VIRTUAL PLACE, the way myspace has become THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE, but they sure have a head start.
Second Life has a lot to offer. For those who do want to build, you can pick anything that exists in the real world and set about bringing that into SL. You can upload pictures, textures, and sounds. If you want to make money, you can put your creations up for sale. If you like shopping, then you should stay far away from SL, because you can shop yourself into the poorhouse! Avatars, clothes, jewelry, guns, furniture, buildings, magic powers, weapons, sounds, animals, toys, poseballs, animations, electronics, hair, skin, scripts, paintings, music, it's all there.
If you type 6ixth into the Search/Places field, there is a place that sells amazing avatars, like the black anthropomorphic unicorn with wings and glowing blue eyes. Much to see at that place.

But yes, as a fan of Second Life, it is a little annoying to read a report by a noob saying that it is useless. Granted, his is a valid point of view, and no doubt others with a similar lack of patience give up on SL for the same reasons. But like many things, if you give it a chance, and take some time to find the places where cool people hang out and interact, and not just teleport around to the most populous places, you may see the mindboggling potential of Second Life, and what it has to offer in its current incarnation.

But to say "Facebook and MySpace will win this war" is an apples and oranges comparison. Second Life is more than just social networking, it is a virtual world.

The amount of US$ spent in Second Life in the last 24 hours: $1,755,438. Almost $2M in 24 hours. And this rate increases all the time, as more users are added. More people buying ,more people creating. It may be premature to call Second Life a fad.

-Day

People start out Second Life hoping for an experience already created for them, like in WoW or other MMORPGs, goals/quests to fulfill, and some kind of head-patting/loot for completing the non-existent quests. Second Life requires imagination to fully appreciate its possibilities and opportunities. There are no NPCs, they're all real people behind the avatars whether they are AFK or not. Business is conducted, friendships are made and nurtured, creation occurs, and logging "quests" is more about gathering new life experiences than gaining levels. The levels are real-life, the quests are those you create yourself, and the loot is the realization of your own vision. Sorry you didn't keep at it, it's worthy of so much more than you gave it.

I found this article very...interesting. I had to respond over on my blog. I hope you will read it and comment.

Here's an excerpt:
"It's been said before but it bears repeating: SL has a lot of shortcomings, but it is the kernel of a new Internet platform that has great potential, much like the Web in the 1990's. Are you going to shoot it down or make it better?"

The thing that struck me most about Second Life (SL) is how well it demonstrates the maxim 'Life is what WE make of it', from love to guns, performing arts to pedophilia.

You're right, in so far as the learning curve to become proficient at existing in Second Life is very high. This is something that Linden Lab & others are working on, essentially in a bid to increase the retention rate of newcommers. It will get better, and the UI of the SL client program itself can only get better.

The computing power required to run SL is a good step beyond that required for MySpace/et al, but Windows Vista is heralding a new wave of highly 3D capable hardware. The lack of ubiquity of PCs with the SL client installed will be a problem for a while (compulsory new versions are released every few weeks), but even this issue is being addressed soon with incremental program updates available only if you go to areas using those new features - essentially bite-sized slipstream upgrades rather than a whole new version to download & install.

The reliability of Second Life too is a regular bone of contention to its users. The "grid" of thousands of servers that create the Second Life experience is currently fragile, demonstrating the current immaturity of the underlying technology. But hey, like every other internet/web technology that had to grow from supporting thousands of users to tens of thousands, to hundreds, to millions, took time to achieve, as will Second Life.

Despite the ubiquity of webcams & their enabling technologies, full A/V webcam chat has not taken off & replaced text-only chatting. Why is that? Are we all so fracked up with poor self-image or unhelpful but ingrained cultural paradigms that we cant bear the thought of someone seeing us in our pyjamas? Not quite...

I think SLs greatest power comes from its (and any good virtual world's) ability to bridge the tiny gap in our brains between a memory and real sensory input. No flavour of instant messenger comes close to the visceral experience of chatting (or very soon, talking) with someone in SL who you'd probably never be able to meet in real/first life, from a passing conversation, to walking/swimming/cycling/bungee-jumping/skateboarding/chess/shooting aliens or robots/etc..., to a whole lot more :-).

The users of the various "social networking" sites have repeatedly demonstrated their fickleness, not to mention the inconsequence of truly appallingly badly designed websites (MySpace). Yeahwhatever.

Second Life is currently at the forefront of a rapidly evolving wave of paradigm shift - the very earliest stages of the so-called "3D Web". Doubtless real competition to Second Life will come & fill other niches. The current divide between WWW & "3D-WWW" will lessen. And the destination is as unknown as the WWW's still is today.

Suggesting that Friendster/MySpace/Facebook/next-months-in-thing have won a war for the hearts and minds of mainstream "social networkers" may be a truism right now, but misses the point, and ignores the reality of the current state of development of Second Life (technologically and socially) entirely.

Your (S.E. Kramer) first Second Life experience unfortunately echos that of many newcommers (aside from the steep learning curve). You appear to have expected to be lead by the nose and patted on the head, a la MMORPG format. Real Life is not like that, and nor is Second Life. You have to get 'out there', use the Search function & find what & who interests you. Would you seriously walk into a (real world) casino & expect people there to befriend you for life? I likely wouldn't want to know them either, in any life.

Ahh, the "noob" argument. Definitely the way to go to encourage people to visit Second Life. No one likes it better when someone else sums up their attempt as "Well, you didn't get the full experience cause you were new and didn't bother trying". I wish people would stop using that word and the smarmy elitist connotations attached to it.

Being a user of another on-line world, There, I also registered for SL quite a bit ago, and while I recognize the potential I never found it to be as intuitive and fun as There. So I can understand the viewpoint of many people going into SL and not enjoying it. Sometimes you just want to get into a game and environment and just go. SL requires a lot more of out of their users to really get the most out of it. This will, unfortunately, keep it to more of a niche since most people can be extremely lazy and will crave simplicity and convenience over all else. A prime example of this was the MP3 player market: Early on, Creative Labs had already released several excellent HD-based players, but the usage experience was no where near as intuitive and easy to use as what Apple unleashed into the world. Fast forward several years and Creative has been relegated to a distant second in the market.

Granted, Second Life has now attracted the media's attention and is in the spotlight, but I still find myself gravitating back to There when I want to just socialize. It's simple to use, attractive (though not as realistic as SL, it's still very pleasing to the eye), and most of all fun.

Overall, Second Life is an incredible environment and has done much to make a true virtual world, but in defense of the article posted here, it needs to have a much lower learning curve, or barrier to entry, than it has now to really hit the mainstream in a big way. The first company who can combine flexibility, power, and ease of use together will be the winner in the virtual environment race.

I know exactly what you mean. I went to New York City once, but wthe first time I stepped off the subway I was in a rundown area that smelled bad. The second time I stepped out onto a rancid subway platform and got mugged. And the third time I walked into a strip club and the dancers just kept talking to each other.

New York is so overrated, there's nothing to do there but get annoyed, mugged, or ignored. I'd heard all about the great museums, nightclubs, parks, and people but after aimlessly wandering around for a night I just didn't get it.

Although, you know, if I had first looked up great places to go in New York, or asked a knowledgeable guide to show me around so I could get my bearings, I might have had a better time.

Nah. New York will never catch on.

A somewhat unfortunate "review" in that the reviewer apparently didn't learn that the key to Second Life is the key to life in general: hanging out with nothing to do is a bore so you go someplace where you can meet people with similar interests, and you go prepared.

Assuming that the reviewer had a fully functioning version of the software, and is interested in science fiction, using the search function and typing in "science fiction" or "books" or "library" might have been a good way to start for someone who insists in going in cold.

However, much like being dumping yourself randomly into a new city by yourself -- that's a choice. Not a good choice -- you might accidentally end up talking to pole dancers -- but given the number of people in the science fiction community who are already active, might the review been a bit different if the reviewer had done some reasonable research before hand? When you go to a new city don't you ask friends ahead of time: hey, name a good restaurant in ... or gee, where's there a good bookstore in... or "do you know anyone who can be a guide?"

I suspect that your reviewer could have asked and thus been escorted for those first impressions.. I suppose a trip to InfoIsland might have been in order, the place where science fiction writers (including myself) have lectured for the librarians and interested audiences. There's a pretty interesting science fiction display there.
There are also helpful librarians there who might give an interested person clues about where to go based on their interests.

Or the reviewer might have gone to Chatrez -- an island built by the Friends of Liad, or to the science fiction museum, or to ... but you know, dropping in to any town without preparation can leave you feeling isolated.

Yes, I'm a long time user of Second Life. I'm been a member of a number of VRML communities over the last decade or so and they are improving. Second Life is pretty close to tops of the ones I've seen.

Next time, try a guided tour.

The "New York" posting above was priceless. Western Union turned down Alexander Graham Bell'e invention ("Who would want to talk over an instrument"); IBM turned down the Xerox folks after an extensive study; Mitch Kapor (now chairman of Linden Lab) says that he never expected the immediate success of "1-2-3" nor its impact on the sale of PC; experienced MS-DOS users saw no reason for the addition of a Graphic User Interface ("it just slows things down -- and you can do more at the command line") and the early Windows and Windows 2 / 286 were far, far clSclunkier than Second Life is now -- only the Macintosh provided promise ("and that's a toy); Early pages were usually poorly designed and ugly -- and, besides, experienced users can do all these things with telnet, ftp, the newsgroups, and there is nothing like IRC in these silly pages. Further, there is nothing here to bring the ordinary person to this World Wide Web ("workers don't want computers in their homes:); MUDers and MOOers (text-based Virtual Reality denizens) see no reason for a 3DVR ("it takes way from creativity and the imagination" -- I'm old enough to remember radio listerners say that about television) and some SL users are against voice integration ("It takes away some of the mystery").

The nay sayers convince me more and more that we have something here. Second Life is certainly the endall for 3DVR. IBM is already talking about a "virtual planet" and the Gartner group estimates that 80% of all World Wide Web users will be using 3DVR, as presently evidenced by Second Life by 2010 (predictions by such as Gartner actually also stimulate the movement and, hopefully, create jobs). Anyone wishing a copy of the Gartner report and /or a invitation to the "Open House and Hoe-Down at the Monroe College Second Life On-Line Internship Center -- Sunday, July 22nd" may contact me at johnmac13@gmail.com

CORRECTED TEXT

The "New York" posting above was priceless. Western Union turned down Alexander Graham Bell'e invention ("Who would want to talk over an instrument"); IBM turned down the Xerox folks after an extensive study; Mitch Kapor (now chairman of Linden Lab) says that he never expected the immediate success of "1-2-3" nor its impact on the sale of PC; experienced MS-DOS users saw no reason for the addition of a Graphic User Interface ("it just slows things down -- and you can do more at the command line") and the early Windows and Windows 2 / 286 were far, far clSclunkier than Second Life is now -- only the Macintosh provided promise ("and that's a toy); Early pages were usually poorly designed and ugly -- and, besides, experienced users can do all these things with telnet, ftp, the newsgroups, and there is nothing like IRC in these silly pages. Further, there is nothing here to bring the ordinary person to this World Wide Web ("workers don't want computers in their homes:); MUDers and MOOers (text-based Virtual Reality denizens) see no reason for a 3DVR ("it takes way from creativity and the imagination" -- I'm old enough to remember radio listerners say that about television) and some SL users are against voice integration ("It takes away some of the mystery").

The nay sayers convince me more and more that we have something here. Second Life is certainly not the endall for 3DVR. IBM is already talking about a "virtual planet" and the Gartner group estimates that 80% of all World Wide Web users will be using 3DVR, as presently evidenced by Second Life by 2010 (predictions by such as Gartner actually also stimulate the movement and, hopefully, create jobs). Anyone wishing a copy of the Gartner report and /or a invitation to the "Open House and Hoe-Down at the Monroe College Second Life On-Line Internship Center -- Sunday, July 22nd" may contact me at johnmac13@gmail.com

Posted by: johnmac13 at July 6, 2007 09:23 AM

"There's a reason that blogs get the vast majority of their readership on weekdays: exploring and networking is often a form of procrastination."

The vast majority of technical blogs are found and read because they contain insight to problems that people are having or have had.

Fact is, the majority of information you need as, say, a web developer, is easily found through a Google search, and a great deal of the sites that contain information are blogs. Yet, I guess I procrastinate by trying to find the answers to my questions.

I agree almost completely with the OP. On a basic level there is nothing SL offers in terms of social networking / shopping etc that isnt better serviced elsewhere.

Beyond that there are things that are offered which are unavailable elsewhere, the question you have to ask yourself is this:

'How much of a geek am i?'

- Clothes - dress the way you like in the real world

- Art - a small part of a screen @ 72 dpi vs a canvas/photographic print/sculpture?

- Sex - please, it aint the real thing

Yes their are opportunities to make money, but that isnt mainstream.

The only real plus is its the only place i can afford to buy a house! - but then again, you can live online all the time, it still rains in the real world.

I agree almost completely with the OP. On a basic level there is nothing SL offers in terms of social networking / shopping etc that isnt better serviced elsewhere.

Beyond that there are things that are offered which are unavailable elsewhere, the question you have to ask yourself is this:

'How much of a geek am i?'

- Clothes - dress the way you like in the real world

- Art - a small part of a screen @ 72 dpi vs a canvas/photographic print/sculpture?

- Sex - please, it aint the real thing

Yes their are opportunities to make money, but that isnt mainstream.

The only real plus is its the only place i can afford to buy a house! - but then again, you can live online all the time, it still rains in the real world.

I completely agree with you.

After spending a good few hours there exploring the place, I came to the conclusion that it's a complete waste of my time. It's boring, difficult to use and buggy. And most of the people I met there were thoroughly dull.

Second Life FAILS it.

I tried it about a year ago, and put in about 5+ hours over a couple of days to explore. I found the process of tweaking my avatar frustrating, and I wish there was a better interface for making objects. I had fun at first in a sandbox (I love being creative, and that's what drew me to 2ndlife in the first place), but it became so difficult to get even a basic shape that I gave up. Later I found a cool building that was a tutorial for making shapes, that helped a lot, but I still found it too steep a learning curve.

As for the social aspects, I tried for several hours to find cool people to hang out with. All I ever found was casinos and sex parties. I tried searching events, but nothing fun was ever going on. I have a lot of different interests (skiing, scifi, programming, ....) but I couldn't figure out how to get the horrible search engine to give me good results. I removed the program from my computer in disgust after much frustration. I even went to new amsterdam (I had just been there on vacation), but it was a disappointment too.

Has it improved recently? I could see myself giving it another try if they've made vast improvements.

I have read so much in the media about SL. An the reason, they are paying the media for those stories. Everything you said S.E. Kramer is so true.

Now don't get me wrong when I tell about my virtual world. I am not here promoting it, but just to let people know we do have other virtual worlds on the web that get very little media attention.

I have spent the past 3 years living in a great virtual world called There.com. We are the other SL game that people don't know much about. An we have a bit of a war between us and SL.

On my virtual world. It is very easy to get right down to enjoying the game. We have really cool cars or buggys for real racing. Hoverpacks and homes one can build easy. That look real. The one thing I just love, is our by far the best voice chat program I have every seen.

The cost is only $9.95 a one time fee to join as a full member. You will need spend money to buy stuff you want. Clothes, Cars, hoverboats, paintball ammo. But that will not add up to much. You can drop a house nearly any where and own land at prices that are so low it seems like they are free. Sure it cost some money to play but its not much. Many people spend just about $10 to $30 a month. Thats cheaper then going to the movies.

Our biggest down side we can't build stuff that easy. Don't get me wrong, one can build stuff. You just can't build in the game as you do in SL. Many designers have made good money creating items. This down side is our up side as well. People can't just build any program scripts to attack people with.

The one good thing about There.com is that we have a very nice group of people that are freindly. An the fact that our world is rated for PG13. We are a clean world of all the stuff we know of in the real world. We have no Co.s selling stuff that looks like a walk down to the mall. We have no signs and flashing billboards selling you strap on devices. Many young girls say that feel so welcomed when thay come to our world. Don't get me wrong, we do have a very small few who attack Noobs. But with a car or buggy, not with a program hack that attacks ones aviator.

So thats it! Come see us over at There.com, I will have cool drinks waiting for you.

So come look me up. Wildbilly

I loved that New York City comparison as well. As a long time resident of SL, I've seen this topic come up over and over again. The New York comparison was one of the best examples I've seen of how people treat SL.

Much like computers, SL is being marketed as very simple and easy - pretty much WYSIWYG. So people think they can just plug in and go. But also much like computers, if you don't put some effort into learning about what you're doing, you won't get much more than a surface impression, and when things don't work how they're "supposed" to work, you're stuck in the mud.

It's a mixed blessing in my opinion - it keeps out a lot of people who aren't willing to commit any creative energy to SL, but it also keeps out people who could truly enjoy the experience if it was a tad easier to get into, or if they were a little more patient in learning and exploring.

SL Is a wonderful platform for exploring something you might never get the chance to "really" experience. As a sci-fi fan and a star trek fan, I have truly enjoyed the full-sized replica of a few starships at the Sci-Fi museum in the Indigo sim. I remember when Hurricane Katrina happened, I think it was the national weather service that built a sim with tons of useful information about hurricanes. They also showed off some experimental devices and research into helping prevent hurricane damage. They also gave the ability to donate L$ (in-world money with real-world value) to survivors of the Katrina disaster.

It has been great in the past year or two to see more and more educational influences working their way into SL. Despite the imperfections in the UI itself, educators and writers have been catching on to the potential that the platform holds.

Things like a better places search, better prioritizing of download packets, and a more user-friendly inventory UI could make it a lot easier to navigate SL. Hopefully Linden Labs will start listening to their community and making these much needed changes. I think that if they do, more new users will be able to find the things they enjoy instead of giving up in frustration.

I've been to New York and to Second Life and I find that comparison pathetically laughable.

New York is at once, clearly and obviously an exciting and interesting place to visit. Please do not kid yourselves and insult the rest of us (and New York for that matter), that somehow Second Life comes even remotely close.

I enjoyed reading this critique of Second Life, as well as all the comments. Life is often a dualistic predicament, and Second Life is a good example of that dualism.

Yes, Second Life is cool, and yes, Second Life is not cool.

Just as in the early days of homesteading in the real world (in the United States of America), Second Life was inexpensive, sometimes even free. For instance, in the early days of Second Life, you would even receive credits after signing up, but not now.

Overcoming obstacles and dilemmas can actually be rather gratifying if you are the FIRST wave. If you are in the FIRST wave, you have a grand adventure, and you only have sweat equity to lose.

Using this analogy, the programmers and their coterie are like the FIRST wave of American pioneers, like Jeremiah Johnson and Paul Bunyan of the 3D Virtual Reality World. Just as the character Hiro Protagonist was a 3D Virtual Reality World pioneer in Snow Crash. Glory is a grand motivator, yet it seems to no longer exist for the noobs in Second Life, because the pioneers already, and rightly so, claimed the glory.

Now comes the second wave of emigres...people who think they want to migrate to Second Life from other social networking venues. Mainly they want to go because they have heard the exciting, wonderful tall tales and real experiences of the Second Life pioneers.

These later experiences are oftentimes different from those in the first wave, mainly because they are not programmers or allied with programmers. The SECOND wave of participants probably could make Second Life work for them, if they want to invest time and money. Where is the glory in that? It seems to me that Glory, one of the main motivators, no longer exists because the Second Life pioneers already, rightly claimed the glory.

For these new people (noobs), the second and third waves of emigrants, Second Life is not cool. Second Life is a job with no pay, glory or reward. Many people already have one job(or more), and they don't want another one. Especially one that can be more like an internship or apprenticeship rather than a career.

3D Virtual Reality Worlds like Second Life have their apologists, and I think that is great. I am not one of them, even though I do see the promise of 3D VRWs. They are not where I want them to be....YET.

I do agree that it is just like the early days of all the technological innovatons like the computer card, the MSDOS prompt, GUI, the internet and progression of innovations that have lead to the current level of 3D virtual reality world. Second Life will most likely improve.

I am very glad to hear the stories of those of you who have met with success in Second Life. In the meantime, I will stick to the effective, yet less costly (in terms of time and money) methods of social networking. This is a preference, not a judgement.

At this time, I prefer to put my effort and thought into other avenues of the virtual world, yet I think it is wonderful that there are pioneers and homesteaders developing the 3D VRWs.

I know that someday, Second Life could be cool, yet I would suggest a few of the reasons why I am waiting for that day, so I can be a part of the Second Life experience.

Second Life could be cool, if you don't mind being a "dup". Like Hiro Protagonist noted when he was tired of seeing all the Barbie and Ken "off the rack" dups. (Today's Second Life is NOW at the same level of Metaverse in Neal Stephenson's novel, Snow Crash, written at the beginning of the last decade of the past century.)

Second Life could be cool, if you don't mind paying money upfront to get situated properly.

Second Life could be cool, if you don't mind doing the research equivalent to a graduate level thesis paper.

Second Life could be cool, if you don't mind "growing up" in front of the entire community, just to get your Second Life avatar to operate with a modicum of sensibility.

Second Life could be cool, if you don't mind ......?????

For me, I agree with Hiro Protagonist, and I don't want to be a dup, so I think I will wait until the wild frontier, with the 3D VRW equivalent of oxen driven Conestoga Wagons, of Second Life has developed to at least the equivalent level of the Pullman Car.

Im a member of SL, i never completed the training course. i simply teleported to maine land, and you dont have to buy anything such as body parts. all this can be found for free at free dove, and other freebie places inside SL. the true grip of this site is buying land or renting a flat. all for real money, erksome u have to have an income in RL to enjoy this part of SL...and also many peeps work on SL, in the many different lands. by work i mean (lindons for sex) they pimp them selves out or their avies.... or work as bouncers or ess-courts or dancers.lol..and you cant go any place to enjoy your self and just do a so called chat with out some one hitting on u for sex. well take that back i have gone to phatcats to dance and enjoyed nice conversations phatcats doesnt allow esscorts in their club. and a real sad aspect of this sex stuff is it could be an 11 yr old on the other side of that avie you meet. i dont recall any age proof required for joining SL. but then im getting old and forgot things..lol..

oh wow I forgot to tell of you about another 3D chat i belong to, IMVU its having some in-world issues at the moment, class action law suits going on but is a grate place to join, once the legalites are worked out will be perfect. the legal issues are over adult asspects the game once had, and has now taken away from its adult members. but any way we have grate looking avitars, grate rooms and lots of fun and interaction, free to join, but yes this game can also cost you money we call them credits, but it also has ways to earn free credits so you may never have to spend any real money if you dont want to. check us out.

Im a member of SL, i never completed the training course. i simply teleported to maine land, and you dont have to buy anything such as body parts. all this can be found for free at free dove, and other freebie places inside SL. the true grip of this site is buying land or renting a flat. all for real money, erksome u have to have an income in RL to enjoy this part of SL...and also many peeps work on SL, in the many different lands. by work i mean (lindons for sex) they pimp them selves out or their avies.... or work as bouncers or ess-courts or dancers.lol..and you cant go any place to enjoy your self and just do a so called chat with out some one hitting on u for sex. well take that back i have gone to phatcats to dance and enjoyed nice conversations phatcats doesnt allow esscorts in their club. and a real sad aspect of this sex stuff is it could be an 11 yr old on the other side of that avie you meet. i dont recall any age proof required for joining SL. but then im getting old and forgot things..lol..edit note# this doesnt mean i dont like SL i love it there i turn down the sex monegers there just as i do in real life lol..ive had many many grate hours in SL..i just wish they would make it more affordable to have a home there. so i dont have to change my avie in public lol..

>> ut after choosing my virtual name I had never downloaded the application that would have let me join the fun. I suspected that creating an avatar and exploring the "world" would be time-consuming, without much reward. I was dead right.

omg man. I can so relate to this. You sound like my Dad when i tried to persuade him to install Compuserve and he said this stuff will never go anywhere.

I find it amazing that a comparison between MySpace and SecondLife is made these systems are quite different, this is indeed the epitome of bad comparison.

What all people must realize about SecondLife is that it is a virtual 3d world driven by real people and wherever you have people you have some of the constituents of real life, do not go to SL believing this is a perfect world, the imperfections of the people driving it is carried over, therefore you will experience all out rude behavior , such as being ignored, even if you politely ask a question, among other things, I have seen many newcomers embarrassed in this way and on the other hand I have seen some very nice helpful people. You just have to learn how to handle these situations, just like anywhere else. You will see a lot of deserted places or places with just nonsense but this is not peculiar to SecondLife, it is everywhere humans are. We cannot rid ourselves of the human element I am afraid.

I would daresay if you can upload a picture on MySpace you should not have many problems with the SL client. One should be careful using bugs in a system to judge the success of the system over the long term; it depends on how the bugs are dealt with by the operators of the system.

So as one poster here says SL is both good and bad so is the real world and the regular Internet, we commonly make the mistake of giving a technology a bad review because of inadequate first time experience, false notions and deductions, SL has enormous potential in many fields Fashion Design, Real Estate and Architectural rendering to name a few.

I can assure you that Second life is a fun place to be despite the rude people, what I think this writer should have done is to stay on a lot longer and then sum up the good and bad of SL, in this way a rough guide could be created for new users instead of using such a weak argument to scare people away.

Here is my mini advice for new users:

If at all you can afford the premium account start with that, it is hard in SL to make a living if you are new, if you are just testing or don't want a premium account search for "freebies" and go get free clothing and other stuff so you do not look like everyone else you will look less of a newbie and command a little more respect.

Read the signs in-world, Read the help files, this is a common omission by everyone, experiment on your own you can find out a lot by experimenting , before wandering around asking everything, be patient put up with a little bit of frustration.

Be wary of the skinned female avatars if you are a male (They look more realistic) they are usually the rude ones, I do not know the exact reason for this whether they are just snobs from RL, or they think you are looking for sex, if you have a question you are more likely to get better results asking a skinned male this does not mean others wont or cannot help we are speaking likelihood here.

Tools to learn
Learn camera control useful in adjusting objects and seeing things without walking or flying to them.

Useful landmarks for new users
Bear Lodge, one of the best mainland info-hubs lots of friendly helpful people, just listening the chatter alone can be helpful, you can search for this.

Some problems I find with SL:

Too expensive, the exchange rate could be better in favor of USD

Too difficult to own land

Oops i may have to correct that little part about Bear infohub recently it has become populated by ill mannered regulars who seem to want nothing but do voice and the occasional moronic chit-chat, then there are some with plain outright annoying behavior what a degeneration,please be careful, one or two useful people may still be there though.sorry for the bad advice, find another info-hub please.

When i first came to Second Life it was bvecause a friend of mine said there were some creative and surreal concepts there. I have experienced some incredible things there, met interesting people some techno-weenies and some normals. I have been a vampire, a cyberpunk, and now i am a scavenger in the wastelands. it is a beautiful post apocalyptic area ala Mad Max and Tank Girl... Not the usual sim either it is a supersim (4 in one) granted buying one sim is $1500.00 and someone bought four of them... each broken building, each disheveled site is lovingly made with incredible details and there is even a "scavenging game" where you collect bits and pieces of things to put into "the machine" to produce a weapon or some useable goods, like a machete, or a cinderblock. Also there are incredibly intricate things to buy, be it clothes or dirty bloody shirts, bandages, med kits and explosives. there is some combat there and the first time i was there wearing the wastelands hud a group of feral children stoned me to death.
when i fight there i have such an adrenaline rush! it is the wildest and most amazing thing. (even better than the cybersex i have had)

it is in no way boring. obviously this writer barely scratched the surface.

Back in early 2006 I entered the world of Second Life. I was fairly savvy in online 3D environments since I'd grown up with them on computer and arcade games. The first thing I had trouble with was.. yes.. the interface. Many of the 3d worlds I'd spent time in had simple interfaces. Maybe 1 to 2 days and I was a pro. What I started to realize with Second Life is that the learning curve is steep because of the vast possibilities of what you can do with the client. The client lets you do anything from walk around in 1st and 3rd person to build huge creations with 1000's of pieces, textures, audio, and video. It lets you store and access tens of thousands of database objects. It allows your to share files, streams, or voice with people all over the world in real-time 3D presence around a common setting. With the creative nature of this world being what it is, the setting your sharing can be anything from a board room to a dark scary forest underwater.

The best thing about being able to create in the world yourself is the vast choice you receive from the equivalent of 30,000 full time game developers piling content in. If you still can't find the clothing, script, plane, ship, gun, picture, painting, sculpture, house, tool, animation. song, stream, video, or yes anatomically correct human part your looking for, you can make it yourself. Everything costs money in every world either in time or trade. For the same price as a 15.99 monthly subscription to another mmo you can have a monthly paying account and a couple thousand lindens or some land. If I paid as much for Second Life as I do for my cable TV service, I could afford a huge bit of land and have tens of thousands of lindens a month to purchase with.

All the tools/lindens in the world aren't going to help you though if you are not able to share the experience. This means you are highly encouraged to socialize. That's the big advantage of this platform. It can get as personal as you let it. The experience between you and other avatars is unlimited but that doesn't mean normal rules of life don't apply. Lets start by the search. You completed your intro training to the world (there are many better places to learn how to live on the grid now besides help island). Where do you go from there? Ahh! Lets pull up the search button and give a go at the popular places... well here is where things get really real.

If you've been on the internet for awhile you'll understand that people can pay to have their listing come back higher in a search. Traffic numbers and the "popular places" search results are based on how long an avatar spends at that location. It is not uncommon for land owners to pay avatars to sit on their land for the sole purpose of raising these numbers. What works in one world sometimes works in another and I'm sure they enjoy a commercial benefit from this practice. This does however give a false perception that the best places in second life are represented by the "popular places". If you want some real results on cool places try one of the user rated services like www.b-places.com . These are based on votes. That site also is a good representation of a corporation providing a service to residents in world at the same time as extending their brand into new places.

Next, remember who you are. Your a total newb and could be anyone on the face of the earth. You need to customize who you are. Make some changes to your profile and your avatar that show your personality. Find New Citizen's Plaza and other "newbie friendly" locations that offer basic free selections of items and clothing. Whether you personalize your avatar or not remember that people are people. If you walk up to a stranger in a bar and say "hey how's it going" or walk into a bar full of strangers and shout "hey everyone what's up?" your likely to get mixed to unfavorable results. If however you walked into a comic book convention and yelled " I LOVE COMICS HOW ABOUT YOU ALL?" I'd bet you would get a huge positive response. This is the form of interaction your looking for. Sure its not a convention, but you can find yourself in locations surrounded, at times, with 80 people all with the same interest as you. The point is, look for what "you" like and you're likely to meet others who do. It is a self paced non committal interest engine that bridges social gaps of all kinds.

Yes it takes some learning but just think of all the people who had to trade their pens for typewriters and later for word processors. When I was young there was no internet, no Google, no online map services, no self worldwide publishing authors or digital media creators, no bloggers, no photo sharing sites, no myspace, and no online banking. The telephone was the only way to talk to someone who wasn't physically next to you.

Now all of that has changed and this is just one way I happen to be very passionate about seeing progress to the next level. If it doesn't satisfy you fine, because it doesn't satisfy me, I'll always want more out of my virtual worlds. That's why they get better. We see things that are wrong and work to make them better. Still, if you go into something expecting failure, your likely to suceed.

Best wishes in the future.
Earth