Second Life

Second Life

URL = http://secondlife.com/

Extensive entry in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life

This entry was compiled with the assistance of Chinarut Ruangchotvit.

Description

" Second Life, a privately owned, virtual world created in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab. People enter Second Life (SL) using "avatars," digital representations of themselves that may or may not bear any resemblance to their real appearance. (Some avatars have antennae or wings). Although the graphics look like those of a sophisticated computer game, a spokesperson for Linden Labs noted that SL is not "a video game, we call ourselves a platform.... It's a creative tool to build and do whatever you want." Although access is free, people must pay to buy land in SL and there are certain hardware requirements and software downloads necessary to enter the virtual world." (http://internationaldemoblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/democracy-island-world-of-boat-people.html)

Discussion

Commentary on the participatory aspects of Second Life

Second Life seems particularly popular with actvists. Why is that? Comments by Chinarut Ruangchotvit:

"1) what is it?

Second Life is a next-generation collaborative canvas for sharing ideas and concepts. It is also can be seen as a platform for interactive virtual collaboration.

2) why is it popular with activist people

when you visit an "installation" - it can capture your heart and give you a wilingness to interact, learn, and meet the people who created the space. it provides context and focus. 3 examples

(A) Memorial Island

residents have replicated "real world" places focused on fundraising - one example being "Memorial Island" (double check name) which replicates the purchase of red and white crosses for the benfit of the Red Cross Foundation. Linden dollars can be exchanged into US dollars thus providing real value.

(B) Camp Darfur

(C) Democracy Island

Democracy Island is a $50k project funded by the New York Law School. It seeks to promote collaboration amongst democrats

More information at: http://www.informationweek.com/research/showArticle.jhtmlarticleID=173601081&pgno=1

3) does it have, in your understanding, any p2p aspects

communities inheritly form due to regions. you can think of the people wandering around a particular part of the world (much like people meet in the same neighborhood) have some kind of relationship with each other. The unique aspect being these people may inheritly be distributed (thus decentralized) around the world.

I personally would like to see more experiments in communication. Right now, communication is primarily chat-based. It does focus on the conversations within a radius of where you are standing and there is IM messaging for those who are not in the same vincinity. VoIP will add a different element to the game. Video games like Halo 2 already have implemented proximity based voicing - this simulates the real world as maintains your context.

4) recommendations for newbies

just play with it - no need to take things too seriously especially amongst all the business talk. sure, there will always be pressure as to how to make $ on the Internet - think about in what way Second Life will help you fufill on your vision for life. Will having a virtual canvas and having your community show up online in a virtual space make a difference? What is your vision for your Second Life?

The open source aspects of Second Life

Intro by Tissch Shute to an interview on the topic with Philip Rosedale, by Robert Bloomfield:

"While Philip Rosedale’s comments may not, at first glance, appear to be saying anything new, they are in fact a very cogent summary of the important and crucial role Linden Lab has played, and continues to play, in moving virtual worlds out of their walled gardens and bringing them closer to that beautiful thing - a system without an owner.

Only a system without an owner can unleash, for virtual world technology, the kind of creative, world changing power that we have seen on the 2D web from http and html. Anyone with even a vague idea of the history of the internet understands that it is only through openess, open source, open protocols, open standards, and open APIs, that we will get from here - the alpha days of virtual world technology, to their coming of age of age as a mainstream phenomena.

It is very much to the credit of Linden Lab that, as Rosedale says, they have never been afraid of openess: “I don’t think that the open grid will impact our revenues any more than open sourcing the client,” he says. While there have been criticisms of licensing choices and ways Linden Lab handles contributions back to their viewer from the community, I think that overall Linden Lab has made very important and visionary moves, first to open source, and now to open protocols.

Open sourcing the viewer at a relatively early point in Second Life’s development created an enormous opportunity for the rapid development of an open source re-engineering of the server side, OpenSim. OpenSim with the Second Life viewer is the most complete, open implementation of a persistent virtual world. Without the head start from the open source Second Life viewer, and the connection to the thriving developer community of Second Life, the light speed progress of OpenSim would have been considerably more difficult.

Now OpenSim is getting closer to breaking free from the Second Life viewer. And, standard messaging protocols between client and server are, perhaps, the next step.

Thus, in my view, Linden Lab’s current focus on open protocols, OpenGrid (for more see here), and interoperability is another key step towards the creation of open standards for virtual worlds. And Linden Lab are again leading the way in creating an environment that fosters innovation.

OpenGrid creates a testing ground where protocols can be worked out, and it enables the kind of heterogeneous ecosystem to develop that can nurture the creation of standards. I agree with Rosedale when he says content makers will have an important role in driving interoperability and standards. The creation of standards is certainly a social as well as technical process. And as Rosedale notes content creators will have compelling reasons to move their content around in an open metaverse." (http://www.ugotrade.com/2008/09/26/philip-rosedale-open-source-virtual-worlds/)

Energy use of Second Life not trivial

"He quotes Philip Rosedale, the head of Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world: "We're running at full power all the time, so we consume an enormous amount of electrical power in co-location facilities [where they house their 4,000 server computers] ... We're running out of power for the square feet of rack space that we've got machines in. We can't for example use [blade] servers right now because they would simply require more electricity than you could get for the floor space they occupy." ... If there are on average between 10,000 and 15,000 avatars "living" in Second Life at any point, that means the world has a population of about 12,500. Supporting those 12,500 avatars requires 4,000 servers as well as the 12,500 PCs the avatars' physical alter egos are using. Conservatively, a PC consumes 120 watts and a server consumes 200 watts. Throw in another 50 watts per server for data-center air conditioning. So, on a daily basis, overall Second Life power consumption equals:

(4,000 x 250 x 24) + (12,500 x 120 x 24) = 60,000,000 watt-hours or 60,000 kilowatt-hours

Per capita, that's:

60,000 / 12,500 = 4.8 kWh

Which, annualized, gives us 1,752 kWh. So an avatar consumes 1,752 kWh per year. By comparison, the average human, on a worldwide basis, consumes 2,436 kWh per year. So there you have it: an avatar consumes a bit less energy than a real person, though they're in the same ballpark." (http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php)

More Information

1. "My Virtual Life", cover article in Business Week about the business aspects of virtual worlds, with Second Life prominently featured [1]
2. Second life criticisms and concerns, here and here
3. Second Life delicious tags for permanent monitoring, here and here

See also: Open Sim, an open source alternative

Videos

1. Introduction to Second Life

More At

Second Life links chosen by Trebor Scholz:

Get A First Life http://www.getafirstlife.com/

Teaching experiments in SL http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/11/13/second.life.university/index.html

A Western shot in SL http://bellsandspurs.com/_video/

"More than 70 universities have built island campuses in Second Life" http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-6157088.html

Lynn Hershman screens new film in SL http://lynnhershman.com/newprojects.htm

Avatars Against the War http://lotusmedia.org/post-protest-processing

Re-branding Africa in SL http://annansi.com/blog/2007/01/africas-second-life/

Images of Activism in SL http://www.flickr.com/photos/venicevandal/sets/72157594474252794/

S.L. for Educators / Teaching and Learning http://www.shambles.net/secondlife/

Recording and Archiving the Build of International Schools Island in S.L. http://internationalschoolsisland.info/

SLURL of International Schools Island in S.L. http://tinyurl.com/2o44dw