Second Life

Did anyone watch Four Corners on Monday night?

Well it was about this - well I'm not sure what you would call it - program/game thing called Second Life. Anyway in essence it's a virtual world that has been created by this company called Linden Lab. I didn't catch the whole story (regrettably - and I'm trying to get my hands on a tape of the whole show!) - only about 15 minutes - but have been frantically googling and researching it trying to find out more - basically Linden Lab (which is a company formed by these 2 young guys out of their garage in the US) has created this virtual world where people can create an account, log on, create their own identity and basically do anything they can do in the real world....but online! You can shop, make things, build/develop property and even meet other people in these virtual places. And it's catching on really fast. Two things that make this virtual world different to anything that has come before it is the fact that firstly, everything you create in this world belongs to you - the IP is your, not the companies - and secondly, you can sell things to other users in this world and exchange your 'Linden dollars' for real US dollars!

Lots of companies across the US and all around the world are quickly catching on to the possibilities in this virtual world and are jumping on board. Companies like IBM and buying and developing land and building buildings etc and offering 'virtual' services that they can charge people to use. Even being seen in this virtual world is probably worth gold in advertising dollars anyway!

You can go into boutique clothing stores and dress your online character in the latest fashions, while at the same time buying clothes for yourself. The virtual world even has it's own 3D search engine that they are talking up as 'the next google' - and it even has it's own virtual prostitutes who earn over US$4,000 a week!!! Virtual items from second life are even auctioned on eBay - it seems everyone wants their own unique piece of this virtual world.

Seriously - this thing seems massive - and if you don't believe me check this out - on the four corners story they featured this women who had developed her own company around this world. She is a virtual property developer - she had over 50 people working for her who buy barren virtual land from Linden Lab and develop it into luxury resorts/apartments/buildings/and island etc and sell it to other people or companies and make an absolute killing. She is now a millionaire and last year was featured on the cover of America's prestigious BusinessWeek magazine.

I just thought this was particularly interesting in light of the set readings for this week which were all about the golden age of the Internet and how the Internet has developed and grown and how it goes through booms and busts etc. It was just interesting and timely to catch this story and learn more about this phenomenon during the week, whilst I was also reading about the golden age of the Internet...............

(I have included some links you may find interesting - transcript from the four corners piece, the four corners home page which has lots more info about Second Life, the second life home page which is interesting to cruise around and get an idea about how big this thing is getting, and finally a link to a video I found that features the two creators of Second Life presenting to a bunch of google employees (i think) about Second Life - it's interesting viewing to see these guys in action)