A Second Life – if your first one disappointed you!

I heard about Second Life – the internet based virtual world – quite a while back and so decided to give it a go a few months ago. This is like nothing I have ever seen on the internet. It’s essentially a role playing online “game”. I say “game” in inverted commas because although you play along with your role it’s not a game in the traditional sense, or in other words there’s no real winners and losers. It’s just living your life on the internet, meeting other people, making money, spending it and so on. But it has taken the online world by storm.

I logged onto the main site secondlife.com where I registered my details and downloaded the software I needed. Once I had installed the program I logged on and found myself transported to the Orientation Island within Second Life (SL). This is were all the “newbs”, a term of endearment for new users of SL, first arrive and begin familiarising themselves with the environment. You are given a basic male/female body, which you can then customise the way you please. You’re also given the standard “newb” clothes but you can always buy new ones within SL or hit the freebie stores and pick up some bargains. On Orientation Island you find quite a few regular SLers who hang out waiting for the newbs to arrive so that they may help them in what can be a rather daunting arrival into the virtual world.

I bumped into a girl who called herself Cottyeto from the East Coast of USA, and she taught me how to “pimp” myself up. My Second Life avatar is a rock-indie chick who is an intelligence analyst, speaks 5 languages, and is the drummer of her own rock band!! Hey, it’s MY second life ok! When you first enter SL, you are given certain standard animations… the standard robotic walk, the standard pose to sit down, the standard pose to stand waiting… but in SL you can, if you’re so inclined code your own animations or hunt for some free ones. MY SL buddy Cottyeto gave me a few animations she had coded and now I walk like I’m on the catwalk,I stand with one hand stylishly resting on my hip and I twirl everytime someone looks like they are “checking me out”

What I found most amazing about SL is the ease with which you can meet all sorts of people in this world. Never in a million years did I think I’d be having a detailed conversation with someone from Japan and someone from America at the same time. For some reason I tend to bump into more Japanese and Americans on SL than any other nationality. The Japanese are always just about to go to sleep – it’s late at night for them when I log on and the Americans are also just about to sleep as it’s still yesterday for them! It’s weird, weird, weird!! But exciting… and all the big multinational corporations have caught on to how SL can be a whole new platform from which to market themselves which is why huge companies like Cisco are already on SL using it as a means of communicating to their customers.

I haven’t used SL too much recently… my first life is keeping me busy enough without my having to worry about a second one. But as soon as I have some time on my hands I intend to explore it further. I suggest you do too if you haven’t already. It definitely is an eye opener. And if you do get yourself onto Second Life let me know and I’ll look you up the next time I’m there.