A Second Life anyone?

For those who do not know about Second Life (SL)  - www.secondlife.com - it is a 3D world where you can explore, engage and interact with others via an avatar. Nothing new here... The Sims have been around a few years now as as Habbo Hotel (www.habbohotel.co.uk).

A number of things sets SL apart:

- People are given tools to build anything they want in terms of shapes and behaviours of objects. 'Prims', the shapes that provide the building blocks to everything that is made, can be scripted. This allows for mini-applications (eg. a slot machines) .

- It's a market. You can buy and sell the local currency - Linden Dollars - with which you can buy and sell services and products. Land is one of the most important assets. For more info about this check out Reuter's section dedicated to SL: http://secondlife.reuters.com/

- The user experience is very good. With tools to build stuff and the ability to buy things one can create and develop his/her avatar identity in many different ways. There is a lot to see and do.

- One can be creative without certain limitations such as gravity or british standard rules for products

There are many problems too, of course, but the experience is generally very good.

What I find most exciting, though, are the opportunity for business and 'real life' (RL) businesses.

Here are a few ideas for business:

- Create and sell products. These can be totally made up or replicas of RL ones. I've come across Red Bull vending machines, for example.

- Market RL products and brands. The cans you get from the Red Bull vending machines are free and animate your avatar to simulate drinking. You can copy and transfer a can to a mate if you wish.

- Event based activities such as concerts, classrooms based training and product showcases. I read up about a company setting up a virtual airport to train staff on certain procedures.

More about opportunites here: http://secondlife.com/businesseducation/

This is a good article too: Making a Living in Second Life, Wired - http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70153-0.html

The biggest barrier is that you need a 30MB piece of software to run it all and that signing up and participating is not a short process like registering for a forum is, for example. Having said that, development of the viewer software has been opened up to the community allowing anyone to build an application to experience SL. No doubt someone's going to build one to embed on web pages.

I go excited about all this because of my background: Degree in architecture and career in new media (including managing online communities). I don't think that this is Web 3.0 but a new channel for people and businesses.

 One final thought... Wired Magazine have an office in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Millions%20of%20Us/202/227/23/?x=300&y=200

e-Consultancy should set one up too!

Loz