I too followed the media hype into Second Life and far from leaving, am still there, and work full time in there! If you look at Linden Labs figures published quarterly (https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/04/16/the-second-life-economy–first-quarter-2009-in-detail) you will see the virtual world, far from dying a slow death that much of the worlds sensationalist press would have you beleive, is going from strength to strength. I personally have seen profits quadruple in the last 8 months. Although many people do indeed struggle with the concept, and end up leaving for lack of something ‘to do’, a vast number of creative people do stay, and contribute to the virtual environment. In addtion, the sex-centric elements of Second Life are in the process of being segregated from the rest of us, and the resulting cleaner image will only serve to benifit everyone. I’m guessing the government has heard of video conferencing, but compare a free pc based client to several thousands of pounds of VC equipment + call costs, and SL comes out a clear winner in terms of both cost and scaleability. Its time the press in general stopped perpetually bad mouthing virtual worlds based on the reports of other ill-informed journalists and took a fresh look at what will (in light of the current economy, increasing oil costs ect) be part of everyones future within the next 5 to 10 years.

Dan, you might find other virtual worlds more useful. I wrote a report on this here: http://cleverzebra.com/book/download

feel free to email me if you have questions.

“Overall after a few days of playtime I was done with SecondLife. I don’t think I’ll revisit the environment as quite simply I can’t see the point of it all.. ”

Same here. real Life is so much better, to be completely honest.

Second Life is hyped and written off for hundreds of reasons by as many people, but insanely … more and more people find many many reasons to stay past those first few log-ins (which, admittedly, doesn’t create a very high retention rate).

How is SL working for those few when it turns off so many individuals and investors? SL seems to fail when corporations like Coca Cola build islands and expect people to drop by and drink more Coke. It also fails for people who want to log on and be instantly amused or entertained.

SL has a very large learning curve … it isn’t for the impatient, or those that demand instant gratification.

Where it succeeds is with those folks who indeed want to create and experience “another world,” and once a person has learned to navigate the richness of SL (instead of writing off the experience after floating around aimlessly for a few hours).

It also succeeds as a community … most of my best times in SL is spent with friends and loved ones I’ve met there … just hanging out in virtual clubs or lounges, IMing or voice chatting, etc.

I can remember my first week … and a lot of it was frustrating, so I can see the writer’s point. I have a different experience, though, because I also chose to explore the social aspects of the experience (which ironically, helped me discover the more visually amazing parts of the grid).

As much as it’s touted as “for anyone,” it’s still in need of development that is separate and beyond of the capitalistic enterprises and entrepreneurialism that’s begun to erode the “coolness” of the place … the only ones who survive with any longevity (past a year or so) are creative types who have a combination of vision and creativity that eventually propels them to contribute to the place. Those who don’t have that “don’t get it” and likely won’t until some distant point … I personally think it should have stayed BETA and flown under the radar for a few more years … it would have still attracted the creative folks … but I doubt it would have been able to remain funded … we’ll see. I hope it stays around, it’s got a long ways to go. I intend to go with it. :o)

One of the main reasons to look at Second Life is that younger kids growing up now will want this kind of interface. Second Life is NOT for teens and young adults - the average age is waayyy up into thirtysomething or even fourtysomething territory. However, huge numbers of real kids are in world like Gaia Online or Club Penguin or Pixie Hollow - a sort of 2.5D Second Life. It seems unlikely these legions will want to return to plain old electronic documents as they grow older.

If you go into SL blindly, expecting it to capture you and live up to what you might consider hype, you’ll be sadly disappointed. But as an environment for Education, from distance-learning/meetings to creating enviroments and projects impossible or unaffordable in real life, it’s unmatched. That’s the future of SL.

I am making $3000 a month renting out land in SL.
Not bad for a game…

The media hasn’t stopped reporting about Second Life; the same people that were copying each other’s clueless “stories” about how it was the most important thing ever are now copying each other’s clueless “stories” about how overhyped it’s been and how it’s about to die. I despair for the tech media, I really do.

I’ve been using SL since late 2006, and it’s endlessly fascinating. It does have a learning curve; although I loved certain aspects of it at first sight, I didn’t really ‘get it’ until I’d been using it on and off for a week or twl.

The user-generated content aspects are great, and really differentiate SL from other virtual worlds. But what I eventually realized was that, at least for me, SL is actually all about the people. People from all over the world who can express themselves in new ways, meet people they would otherwise never have met, imagine themselves in new ways, try out new things, in a safe and forgiving and empowering environment.

Anyone looking for something comparable to, say, World of Warcraft, is likely to be disappointed. But if you’re willing to tough it out for the learning curve (which really isn’t *that* bad), you may discover it has attractions that you wouldn’t have expected.

“Second life to me basically did not appear very child friendly.” That’s because it’s for grownups! Duh.

there are two kind of people: some write about wasting time in SL and media hype, others have a good time there. Its normal… anyway, I think to be there in SL is better fun

[…] Second Life - a big waste of time? More foolishness from IT bloggers that can be summed up as “I don’t get it, so let’s all just forget it.” *sigh*… […]

The jury’s still out as to whether it’s really worth my time, even after 2 1/2 years in and out of SL. But I think you could have done a little more exploration, and found a community that shared your interests, closely if not exactly. As for the ITPro part of your site’s moniker, did you even give scripting that much of a look? The language has become very flexible with an infusion of 2.0 techniques and I’ve been able to make things from treasure hunt sets to a pogo sticks and land mines game to networked blog terminals.

I do have to agree that the content quality varies radically at times and I have to scrape my shoes of BDSM every 20 feet sometimes, but I’ve found a good sim to work from and after you’re done exploring you can find a place that truly suits you.

And I do agree fully on the lag. At times it’s taken me nine hours to do an hour’s work and because the results of lag and glitches are so random and unpredictable, you have to be a masochist and/or idiot at times to stay logged in while it all falls down around you. So bravo for speaking your piece.

I’ve played Second Life off and on for two years. “In addtion, the sex-centric elements of Second Life are in the process of being segregated from the rest of us, and the resulting cleaner image will only serve to benifit everyone.” That is ridiculous. Sex is everywhere, absolutely everywhere in the game. I agree with the commentor about the average age is much older in SL than other online games and there are many more women. There is a strong creative community. But it seems the users who spend the most time inworld are sex deviants. Yes, me included. To spend any government and/or school money on this game is ludicrous.