Apologies for the long overdue post, everyone! I’ve quietly been working on a new site (which is where the previously-published Amazon Apps post will be relocated), and it’s been taking a lot more time that I had anticipated. I’m keeping it under wraps for a bit longer, but it will be ready to be revealed soon! And speaking of revealing …
I have a confession to make. For the last 7 years, off and on, I’ve been leading a double life. Not in a spy-like manner akin to my personal favorite double agent, Sydney Bristow, but you could say that I have been secretly moonlighting as someone else. Not quite a doppelganger or an evil twin – instead, she’s my puppet to be toyed with, a flexible marionette whom I can make go anywhere, say anything, and disguise with endless variations. You could even say that I can have sex with her, or rather, have sex using her.
Confused yet? Welcome to the occasionally wondrous, often wild, and permanently weird world of Second Life.
Some call it a virtual chat community; others accurately describe it as an MMOG without quests, goals, or even a true purpose. Perhaps the best way to describe Second Life is as a metaverse, which comes from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. In Neal’s fictional metaverse, humans (as avatars) interact via a three-dimensional, virtual environment that exists as a metaphor of the “real” world. If it sounds fascinating, it really is – but the trouble is that an exceptionally small percentage of Second Life’s “residents” have figured out what the hell to do there. More than 18 million people worldwide have registered accounts, but the average number of people logged in (or “in-world”) at any given time is usually between 30K – 80K, with the estimated number of active members at around 750K. Yep, that means that only 3% of registered members actually spend any time in-world.
Personally, I’ve taken extended absences from Second Life. My first account was registered in 2003, when the program was barely out of infancy. A good friend of mine worked at Cyberlore Studios, the company that developed the first Majesty game, and at the time Linden Lab (developer of Second Life) was contacting game development studios to get employees involved in beta testing. My friend told me about it and invited me to set up an account, and back then “the grid” (resident slang for the virtual world) was a ghost town. You might see a few dozen people logged on and grouped closely together in a handful of “sims” (regions), but no one really knew where to go or what to do. Over time, my friend got into designing custom builds and avatar clothing, eventually eking out a good living that allowed him to quit his real-life job. Myself, I lost interest – especially considering how horribly the viewer ran on my old Dell PC – and I pretty much forgot about it.
Then in 2006, I heard about Second Life again in passing, and decided to sign up a new account with the express purpose of earning some extra money. I spent a few months toiling at designing clothes in Photoshop and hoping to make a few bucks selling them in-world, but by that time there were hundreds – if not thousands – of “fashion designers” in SL, and it just wasn’t worth the trouble trying to compete. Not to mention, making money in Second Life takes work. At the time of this writing, the conversion rate is 265 Lindens (the in-world currency) to 1 USD. So to make $100 real-life dollars, you have to sell 26,500L worth of items – not an easy task for a new brand that no one has ever heard of. Pimping your products in Second Life is highly dependent upon your ability to kiss the ass of the hundreds of SL fashion bloggers out there, and often requires spending a pretty penny on purchasing advertising on various SL-related websites, which I just didn’t have the funds to do.
In 2007, my interest was piqued again, and that third account is the one I still use today. I’m coming up on 3 years since I “rezzed” with my latest avatar, and I can honestly say that I still have absolutely no clue what to do in Second Life. I have a cute avie with a custom shape, more hairstyles and skins than any respectable person would ever need, and thousands of inventory items collected over the years. But for what purpose? When I log in, my typical M.O. is to rezz into my skybox (a small, nondescript home-base that I’m charged $72/year for the privilege of owning), where I spend a few minutes picking out an outfit, hairstyle, etc. Then maybe I’ll teleport to a random sim and wander around for a while, looking for someone witty to chat with, most often to no avail. And I think that’s my primary issue with Second Life. In my perfect “metaverse”, it would be a place to meet cool, like-minded people with whom one could have interesting conversations. But Second Life is plagued by something aptly called the Crowded Empty Paradox – meaning that tens of thousands of people might be logged in, but the majority are either ensconced in their own “homes”, congregating in a handful of popular places, or off having virtual sex on the designated “adult grid”. And let’s be honest – that’s what you’ve been hoping I’d write about this entire time. ;-)
Stay tuned for Part II!
