Al’s Morning Multimedia: It’s a “Second Life” World

Just as Facebook, MySpace and a gazillion other sites sprang up and found life long before mainstream journalists knew about it, a Web site — which may be better described as a Web way of life — called Second Life has millions of devoted users.

University of Maryland professor Don Heider, an old friend of mine from our TV days together in Nashville, is co-authoring a book about Second Life. I interviewed Don to see what journalists should know.

In a few sentences, explain what Second Life is. Tell us about the economy, interaction and social networking that occurs there, too.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world — accessed through the Web. It’s free to join and participate. It is a place with geography, physics and a sense of place, and is populated by people represented by avatars. It’s a social world, a game for some and, for others, a building and development tool.

When you started studying Second Life, what surprised you most?

I just visited at first — didn’t have any idea I would study it, but I was amazed by the place. It’s not a game in the classic sense in that there are no goals. You’re not earning points or reaching levels. But it did have playful elements. It also is a place where people are allowed to let their creativity run free, and the company that runs it — Linden Lab — allows people to have the intellectual property rights to whatever they create inside the world.

I was surprised by the rich social interaction — how people treated each other, the complex relationships that were formed, the level of emotional attachment, just to name a few things. It felt like the first time I got on the Internet, there seemed to be that kind of open-ended potential in Second Life.

There are 5.8 million residents in Second Life and 1.7 million logins in the last month. When I logged in, there were 36,000 other people logged on. What is the attraction to this thing?

One good thing to know is you have to take Linden Lab’s numbers with a grain of salt. There are 5.8 million accounts, but people can create multiple accounts. My guess to date would still be between 1 and 2 million individuals with accounts.

I think the attraction is a place where you can create your own reality and experience the different realities others have created as well. I’ve described Second Life to some as “playing Barbie on steroids.” You can make your avatar beautiful, sexy, attractive and dress it up in all sorts of different outfits — then buy land, build or purchase a home, furnish the home, get a car and boat, etc. In this way, it resembles some of our childhood fantasies. But for others, there are much different kinds of fantasies that they can live out that might include living life as an animal, living cross-gendered, living as a slave, experiencing life as a vampire — those kinds of things.

Some people join for the economic aspects. There is a real viable business community. There is a currency which can be bought and sold for real dollars, and people come in and create and sell goods and services, a few with considerable success. But many people come with the idea that this might be a place to make money.

I understand that Reuters even has a Second Life reporter. Is Reuters covering the real news about SL, or is it covering the virtual news that occurs in that virtual world?

Adam Pasick spends a few hours a day in Second Life and writes about activities and events in the world as well as covering a larger beat of technology. Reuters has built a very good site inside Second Life where residents can go to find out about news or get a device they can carry with them that apprises them of news going on in the world.

See Reuters’ interview with Pasick here.

What stories do you think journalists should do about Second Life?

Remember this? “There are 8 million stories in the naked city.” Well, in this virtual world, there are a lot of stories to be done. There are some already that are overdone. Second Life has been covered by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, NBC, BBC, etc. The most frequent story: how people are making money in Second Life. The problem is, not that many people really are. Often these stories have lacked perspective and context, often because the reporters covering them haven’t spent any time in the world. They feel like those bad, old stories by new foreign correspondents right off the boat. There was a high gee-whiz factor but almost no understanding of what they were seeing and reporting.

The other issue is — Second Life is anonymous. So, reporters have to persuade people to go public so they can tell their stories. I think the key for this, like any story, is trying to find a local angle.

A good way to learn about Second Life other than just spending time there is to read blogs about it. One of the better ones is done by an embedded journalist in Second Life, Wagner James Au.

Along the right column on his page are links to many other blogs. Some of the bloggers identify their real identity and include contact information.

I think Au has also operated like a de facto PR person for Linden Lab regarding Second Life. His in-world name is Hamlet Linden, and he can be contacted at hamlet@secondlife.com.

A few good story ideas

A number of community organizations have support groups or a presence in Second Life. What are they doing there and why?
Many universities are building sites in Second Life. Are they teaching classes? Is this the future of distance education?
Corporations are entering Second Life, from Reebok to NBC. What do they hope to gain from their presence?
Love and marriage are a big part of Second Life. Many people have romances in the world even though they may already be married. What effect do virtual relationships have on real-life marriages?
A couple of final notes. Tech consultancy Gartner, whose “Hype Cycle” has measured Second Life adoption, predicts that 80 percent of active Internet users will be in non-gaming virtual worlds like Second Life by the end of 2011. This is a big increase from levels now. And there is a small but public insurgency about some nagging problems inside Second Life.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 11:01 am and is filed under Second Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.