Have you heard of 2nd Life? I thought it was infamous....... 2nd Life is a virtual world where people can pretend to be someone they’re not and interact with people that they don’t know in real life and will probably never meet. There’s something quite sinister about that for me but hey, whatever floats your boat!
2nd Life is based on the real world with some differences. Everyone is really hot! They just don’t do ugly! They do weird but not ugly. Your avatar is supposed to be a visual representation of what you look like but if that’s true there are some really strange looking people out there somewhere. And did I mention you can fly? Don't see many of them on the streets of Glasgow.
Avatars can talk to each other and use facial expressions or gestures to communicate while you type away in the chat feature similar to Facebook.
You can go out and meet other avatars or if you wanted, hide out on a private island. You don’t have to make your space available to other users but it's worth every penny of the £200 per month!! The basic role of 2nd Life is as a game. That’s what 2nd Life was initially created to be. 2nd life has been created by its users who have built houses, streets and shops. You can walk down a street. Go for a virtual romantic meal with a hot avatar or do some virtual shopping. The only snag is that you don’t spend virtual money. 2nd life has its own currency that you have to buy with real cash so even although it feels like it’s not real, it is. You are spending real honest to goodness cash.
If you’re lucky or talented you can make some money too. There are plenty of virtual jobs available like shop assistants, designers and private detectives. Yes, you heard me right. Private Detectives. There is complete anonymity for the users and a few years ago there was lots of publicity about virtual affairs leading to divorce. So on 2nd Life you can hire a private detective to make sure that your loved one is not out doing the virtual dirty.
Publicity from the media may have also highlighted to the Public that it’s possible to do things online that you can’t in real life with little risk of being caught. Now if you go online to 2nd Life there is a good chance that you’ll meet someone who will use explicit language or offer to perform activities that you may not have even heard of!!!
There are no rules on 2nd Life. No one is monitoring the content as it grows from user content.
It's not all sinister. There are some people on there who have used the virtual world to do things that they couldn't in real life. Things that all of us secretly wish we could do. Things like this video.
Love it!!!!!
As part of the course we had to create our own avatars and visit areas in 2nd Life. I’ll be totally honest with you. I didn’t do it. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in 2nd Life and based on listening to the experiences of my fellow students I’m happy with my choice.
I don’t need to visit a virtual world to understand the concept. I totally get the concept and applaud the person who thought it up. Virtual worlds have so many different aspects to them that should be positive and I think in a business capacity they are clearly a brilliant concept.
Imagine you could create a virtual model of your body that could go clothes shopping instead of you! I would be so happy to never have to face a changing room again. I could go online visit the shop and try on the clothes, order what I liked and get it sent to my house. Easy! On 2nd Life you can do this just now but the avatar is obviously not to your exact proportions. Still you can go into shops and buy things for your avatar and this is proving to be useful to business not only in terms of sales but also for marketing. In the virtual store you can have any colour. You can change the look of items and this information is allowing businesses to gather information about customer preferences. There are drawbacks to this theory as the users may be prepared to wear different styles of clothes virtually. More revealing or from different materials but in terms of marketing it’s still useful and free information.
Companies use virtual worlds to test consumer reaction to new products before launching them at very little cost. Big named brands such as Nike and Adidas have a virtual presence which they use to test new products on customers to the virtual store.
2nd Life is not just used for selling things.
Businesses can hold virtual meetings. Book a meeting room, turn up as your avatar and hold a meeting. What’s wrong with video conferencing is what I want to know? This just seems a bit too much for me. I know there can be lots of attendees and it’s easier to see everyone but it still seems weird even if it does save time and money!Virtual tours in real life businesses are becoming common especially with estate agencies and the virtual world really is where businesses can try out new things. Businesses can make a virtual shop. Architects can build virtual buildings to help with planning. There’s a virtual Saltire Centre which looks exactly like the real thing. The technical ability needed to build things within virtual worlds is high which may mean that small businesses may struggle to get on board.
The security aspect of 2nd Life is my main moan as it’s just not governed and for me as a consumer it’s completely off putting. I was and still am really surprised that the University is promoting 2nd Life although I can understand the appeal to the business community. Maybe it’s not just a bunch of weirdos living out a fantasy life that they’ll never have but weirdos with a serious amount of real honest to goodness cash to spend!!!
The lab this week for most of the students was a source of frustration and to be honest the computers provided by the University as a whole are not at all what I expected. Trying to log on to a PC can take forever and sometimes you have to try 3 or 4 before getting one that works. I thought this had improved but again this week my PC refused to co-operate. It had been explained to us that 2nd Life didn’t like lots of users trying to access it from the same IP address so we knew that all of us wouldn’t be able to register....thankfully.....but you still expect the computers in the lab to switch on! I realise that this isn’t down to the lecturers but it is important that we put into practice what we learn and we can’t do that without a PC.
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