Recently I have been noticing media reports about goings on within a thing called Second Life. After a dozen or so, I figured it was time to investigate. Well, I am intrigued, and online world that isn't about killing dragons and casting spells that seems to have a large support base (I suspect that free entry might have something to do with it). My local government funded media outlet has recently purchased an island . The whole premise seems to have a very artistic/creative slant to it, promising life performances or lectures. I can't see myself joining anytime soon, but it is a concept worth observing. The whole thing reminds me of the book Idoru.
It makes you wonder where this stuff will end up. Will we one day work inside a virtual world? A lot of us deal with people via email or phone only anyway, never seeing the person in the flesh. Education too could benefit - that expert who lives on the other side of the world can now hold global lectures from the comfort of their own home. There would be a darker side too, with cults and criminal organisations using a virtual world to circumvent traditional communication channels.
Yes, something well worth watching.
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Second Life is astounding. Not that I actually spent more than 2 minutes in it. The Linux client is repulsively bad (for now).
But the idea that the creators can create wealth from nothing is intriguing. People value real estate in real life because property with quality attributes is finite. In SL though each new island is just like the previous one, and they can keep creating new islands as long as they buy more disks. Why is this valuable in the SL economy?
And then there's the usage of the Linden Dollar as real exchange! It still amazes me that a small company created a fictional currency and established an exchange to make real life profit from people trading in it.
The ABC 7:30 report has covered this before and I think they have another story on it this Tuesday night.
does SL have inflation?
Is continually creating new lands to sell, and hence making more money, similar to just printing more currency or is it more similar to what we call in the "real" world 'urban sprawl'?
Good for people to know.
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