I’ve heard a few odds and ends about the Second Life software over the last probably year or so, and I was prompted to try the experience out for myself, especially after having read about its integration with the VON keynote by Jeff Pulver. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of Second Life, and, frankly, I wasn’t even sure what Second Life was, until I registered, downloaded, and installed it. (Sorry for my out-of-touchness, it seems that every co-ed geek with their homework done is playing Second Life, and I’m just now getting beyond the “heard of it” stage…)

I really like Elliptic Blog’s definition of Second Life:

Once you have you alter ego online, you simply roam around, chat with people, play games, buy land, build homes, create objects you may want to sell for the local currency (Linden Dollars) and so on. What makes this unique — there is no ultimate goal or quest; people simply form emerging social and dwelling systems and economies: a laissez-faire experiment in a digital petrie dish.
Second Life isn’t a game, a chat room, an eBay knock-off, a social networking site, a Starbucks, or a media service–it’s ALL OF THEM COMBINED. Second Life is, in a nutshell, a reality simulation (oxymoron?) that attempts to synthesize, using a 3D audiovisual user environment:

• A land where people’s avatars (or “avs”) can move and interact freely.
• A quazi-simulated economy that includes a real-estate market, service industries, and manufacturing, all provided by real-life human participants who buy and sell their wares and services.
• A variety of social settings, built by real-life participants, that can be used to facilitate interaction between participants, and that can be used to generate in-simulation income for their operators, which are real-life players. So, you could build a nightclub and charge tips to each person entering, or build a casino and charge a fee for every pull of the slot machine.
• Homes. Each player can have a home. Poor characters rent; rich characters buy. Real estate costs real money, while rental fees are paid to the owner using the in-game currency, known as Linden Dollars.

Interestingly, the simulation includes a variety of connections to the real-world:

• Real-estate transactions use real dollars.
• Real dollars and Linden dollars are exchanged at a rate that benefits the developer, of course.
• Real-life media sources such as audio and video can be used in the simulated world. So, if you’re a guitar player, you could give an in-world concert for the in-world crowd. I attended such a concert and discovered that there’s actually a thriving blues underground in Second Life–a subculture nurtured within an alternate reality.
• Participants can interact with each other using an expansive variety of avatars, clothing, emotes, sounds, participant-made devices, and animations for their characters.  While in the “Help Island”, the place where all Second Life characters are “born”, it only took me about fifteen minutes before I’d been propositioned for sex by a Second Life lurker. And apparently, there are indeed in-world animations and objects for sexual activity–just no reproduction, that I’m aware of.

To the uninitiated, Second Life is nothing short of amazing, especially when you consider that 2L’s developers have even created a programming language (a scripting system) that allows you to program the behavior of objects in the world. Moreover, you don’t even have to leave the game world to do your development. Virtual machines have given way to virtual development environments. So, you are now able to develop in-sim objects to do your bidding. It’s all very reminiscent of William Gibson’s “matrix”, which he wrote about in the 1984 cult novel Neuromancer. Everybody in the world, connected to a common cyberspace, seeing the same simulated reality, developing hacks to further their life in that reality, and, ultimately, living their whole lives online.

Indeed, there were social orders I had no idea could exist in such a fashion. I encountered political groups, musical fan clubs, and even a group called Second Life Christians.  The resemblance of Second Life sociology to that of First Life is both intriguing and disturbing.  Considering Second Life as a conduit for thoughts and ideas, bringing real-world issues into the alter-reality only makes sense.  I’ve read that several big-name celebrities are now using Second Life as a public relations mechanism in a fashion similar to MySpace.
I can certainly appreciate the impressive accomplishments of the Second Life social apparatus. Seriously, it’s like MySpace meets the Sims meets Skype meets after hours clubs meets World of Warcraft meets blogging meets Yahoo Chat, and I’m probably leaving something out. I am amazed that Linden Labs isn’t on the cover of Time Magazine. That’s how significant an accomplishment those guys have on their hands. Indeed, it seems that Second Life is somewhat of an underground thing, a  social experiment first and foremost. But, if commercialized beyond the simple “currency exchange” business model Linden uses, I have no doubt that Second Life would be an unparalleled commercial hit.  But in what genre?  And how do you market such a thing? How to you get past the 300,000 user mark and make the thing ubiquitous?
But all of this, mind-boggling as it is (I was blown away after four hours in Second Life) has me asking myself “Why?”.  When I say “why”, I mean, what does Second Life do for people, ultimately?

Is it fun? You bet your butt it is. Did it foster human interaction when I tried it? Sure. Did it foster artistic appreciation? Sure. Did I want to go back to 2L as soon as I logged off? Yup. In fact, I was so compelled about it, I was thinking about it when I woke up this morning. And I don’t know if that’s healthy.  I think that’s the reason why I won’t be logging back on to 2L for a while. I can see it ruining peoples First Lives. One of the players I talked to on Second Life said he had been on twelve hours a day since September 6. OUCH.  I went ahead and deleted it from my Macbook.

But I might be reinstalling it.