Second Life « Desktop Virtual Reality

Second Life

3D worlds: Second Life

“Second Life is the statistical average of all our dreams”, he told me. “We get to rewrite the most basic rules again, from the perspective of the human mind.”
SL founder Philip Rosedale in conversation with Tim Guest, in: Guest, T. (2007). Second Lives. London: Hutchinson. ISBN: 0091796571. [Amazon]

Second Life has, since its launch on 23rd June 2003, become an Internet phenomenon, arguably on a par for popularity and brand recognition with MySpace and YouTube; and, like them, a triumph of user-created content. From an initial 16 servers and around a thousand users it now (22nd May 2007) runs on 3000+ servers and has 6,607,337 residents of whom 30,000 upwards will typically be online at any moment of the day.

A possibly minor (given the ubiquity of MS Windows) but significant advantage Second Life has over much older Windows-only rivals such as ActiveWorlds and Worlds Inc is that it is cross-platform (WinXP, Mac, Linux): as a Linux user I can now wander around a virtual world without having to grudgingly dig out and boot up a Windows machine.

Second Life
» http://secondlife.com
Summary page at VWR:
» http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/secondlife/

The most comprehensive video introduction to SL that I know of, though way out of date (from days boasting a membership of 150,000 rather than today’s nearly 7 million), is on Google Video:

For a short introduction, see:

SL-related sites:

The Official Site of The Unofficial Tourists Guide to Second Life
“The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life is a fast, fun guidebook that introduces first-time visitors to the endless wonders offered by this exciting and rapidly developing online world.”
» http://unofficialsecondlife.com

SLTutorials.net
As the name suggests, tutorials for everything related to SL, with topics including building, currency, land, and scripting.
» http://www.sltutorials.net

SLurl
Web site providing direct teleport links to locations in Second Life and an easy-to-use gateway to the Second Life Web Map API.
» http://slurl.com

SL Universe (SecondLife news)
“SLUniverse is the longest running third party Second Life community site. Launched in 2003, it has grown into a comprehensive resource for Second Life residents.”
» http://www.sluniverse.com

SL History Wiki (“a project to document various aspects of Second Life’s history that anyone can add to”)
» http://history.secondserver.net

Second Life Herald (the SecondLife community newspaper)
» http://www.secondlifeherald.com

Second Life News Network
“SLNN offers in-depth reporting on breaking news and events in Second Life and Real Life developments that affect Second Life. The news network fills a gap by serving people unbiased and objective information about relevant topics on a daily basis.”
» http://www.slnn.com

Second Life News Center (Reuters of course has a SL Bureau)
» http://secondlife.reuters.com

Sloog
“Sloog is a bookmarking service for Second Life residents. It allows users to save favourite places and avatars and search for them later, both in-world with a simple plug-in (HUD) or via web browser.”
» http://www.sloog.org

SL Boutique (a market for buying and selling SL objects)
» http://www.slboutique.com

Second Realty
… strange but true: “Second Realty offers a number of property services including sales and rentals of land and housing, landscaping services and related products such as furniture, fixtures & plants.”
» http://www.second-realty.com

Second Life Video (a sort of YouTube for SecondLife)
» http://www.secondlifevideo.com

Second Cast (a podcast covering culture and events in Second Life)
» http://www.secondcast.com

Planet.WorldofSL.com (“Syndicating the Second Life blogosphere”)
» http://planet.worldofsl.com

Second Life : Official Linden Blog (the official Second Life blog)
» http://blog.secondlife.com

Pathfinder Linden
Personal blog of Linden Lab employee John Lester, currently Linden Lab’s Boston Operations Director. Masses of useful information, news, and links. Scroll down to browse, especially, the ‘Great Second Life Links’.
» http://zero.hastypastry.net/pathfinder/

Second Tense (another Second Life blog: “Discussing technology and future of Second Life as the Metaverse—a matter of when, not if.”)
» http://secondtense.blogspot.com

Second Life Research (academic research on all aspects and uses of Second Life)
http://secondliferesearch.blogspot.com

Second Life Future Salon (yet another Second Life blog)
» http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com

3greeneggs
Plenty of useful postings in SL in a blog “about virtual worlds, web systems, and pretty much everything else”.
» http://www.3greeneggs.com/wp/category/secondlife/

ninjafoo Ng : A Second Life on Linux (a Second Life blog for Linux users)
» http://ninjafoo.blogspot.com

FutureTag, Slgp1, ‘Real Virtuality in your Second Life and beyond’
The Future Technologies Advisory Group (FutureTag) “is a consulting and media group focused on promoting awareness and understanding of radical scientific advances and emerging technologies, as well as evaluating their impact on individuals, businesses and societies.” This section reviews and assesses the impact, actual and potential, of Second Life.
» http://futuretag.net/index.php/Slgp1

Metaverse Technology (an SL-based company)
» http://www.metaversetech.com

and see news articles at:

[BBC] ‘Second hype or second life?’
» http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6137424.stm

[The Guardian, 14 June 2005] ‘Second Life and the virtual property boom’
» http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/06/14/↩
second_life_and_the_virtual_property_boom.html

[The Guardian, 20 July 2006] ‘Slices of life in a parallel universe’
» http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1823964,00.html

[The Guardian, 07 Oct 2006] ‘You only live twice’
» http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1889617,00.html

[The Guardian, 24 Oct 2006] ‘Braving a new world’
» http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/↩
story/0,,1930135,00.html

[The Guardian, 07 Nov 2006] ‘Second Life gets its first tabloid’
» http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1941621,00.html

[The Guardian, 07 Nov 2006] ‘Second Life plugs into broadband TV’
» http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1941633,00.html

[3pointD, 27 Nov 2006] ‘Convert Your MySpace Page to 3D Space Via 3B’
» http://www.3pointd.com/20061127/convert-your-myspace-page-to-3d-space-via-3b/

Finally, take a sobering look at:
‘Get a First Life: A One Page Satire of Second Life’
» http://www.getafirstlife.com

[World verified on 31 Jan 2006, and all links and world last viewed, on 01 Dec 2006]

You must be logged in to post a comment.

About this site

Online resources and tutorials for the elective Desktop Virtual Reality module of the BSc Computer Information Systems Design in the Faculty of Computing, Information Systems, and Mathematics, Kingston University, UK. This module is taught by (and the web site managed by) Second Life resident Khoisan Fisher (a.k.a. Chris Hutchison), whom you may contact as khoisan.fisher[AT]gmail.com.
Search for:
Sections
Blogroll
- Attica
- Vorticism (KU)
Second Life
vortiCISM
- New bookshop, new books 14 December 2009
  The new Bookshop is now open in solipCISM Village, with new titles on teaching and learning in Second Life: Aldrich, C. (2009). Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds: Strategies for Online Instruction. London: Jossey Bass. ISBN-13: 978-0470438343. [Amazon] [Product description from Amazon] Higher education institutions are increasi […]
  Chris Hutchison
- JISC, ‘Getting Started With Second Life’ 30 November 2009
  I’ve just found the very useful JISC publication , ‘Getting Started With Second Life’, at 32 pages a succinct and very readable guide for educators that addresses just about all the core issues for newbies, from first signing up for an account through to answering questions relating to common mistakes and assumptions. The only shortcomings […]
  Chris Hutchison
- Building the bookshop 30 November 2009
  The new solipCISM bookshop, located in the new Village at 4000 metres over the island, is now near completion. At the present time it displays and (via a link to Amazon) sells only books related to Second Life, plus a couple of my own books. My hope is that other staff in the faculty will [...]
  Chris Hutchison
- Phone line installed on solipCISM 26 November 2009
  You can now reach Khoisan by telephone in solipCISM. Students and others have always been able to see whether or not I’m online, but unless they’ve been on my Contacts list they’ve had no direct way of contacting me when online. To address this inconvenience, I googled a telephone box image, built a telephone box, and [...]
  Chris Hutchison
- Rezzable and Heritage Key 15 November 2009
  It had been, as much as anything else, my longstanding interests in virtual history and virtual archaeology that had, after some years of teaching my desktop VR module, motivated me to devise and launch my final-year undergraduate Culture & Heritage Informatics module two years ago. I’d been surprised and impressed by a number of historical [...]
  Chris Hutchison
- The Middle Passage Experience comes to solipCISM 9 October 2009
  I’m delighted to announce the arrival of Tamsin Barzane’s Middle Passage Experience installation as a new permanent exhibition on solipCISM. I first blogged the exhibition back in early July when it was curated on Saminaka. Prim limitations at that time meant, however, that the exhibition there could only be temporary, so I’m very pleased […]
  Chris Hutchison
- Ananse’s Web 9 October 2009
  I’ve written before about the cultural and educational African presences in Second Life, and documented elsewhere Tamsin Barzane’s impressive Middle Passage exhibition on Saminaka. Back in early August Tamsin invited me to a meeting of Africanists convening on Friday 10th August in the magnificent Saminaka Library. [2009/08/06 4:27] Tamsin Barz […]
  Chris Hutchison
- solipCISM gets makeover 3 September 2009
  In preparation for the next academic year, beginning in four weeks from now, solipCISM has had an extensive makeover this summer, with much of the existing content redesigned, rebuilt, or re-textured, as well as much new content added. The Welcome Zone has been largely redesigned and rebuilt, now with well-stocked freebie shops as well as [...]
  Chris Hutchison
- Demonstration of 3Di OpenSim for education 3 September 2009
  Other than maybe better integration with the web, I’m not yet sure I quite yet see the point of this–Second Life running in a frame within a standard web browser (available for both Firefox and IE)–maybe because the documenttion is scant in English (3Di is a Japanese company), but it seemed to me worth posting [...]
  Chris Hutchison
- Second Life running on an iPhone 3 September 2009
  I first found these YouTube videos almost a year ago, but hadn’t thought to flag it in this blog. At that time, the company that was leading the development of Second Life on mobile phones was streaming mobile game service provider Vollee: Vollee is a technology company which streams PC applications to mobile handsets. By hosting [...]
  Chris Hutchison
Admin stuff

Desktop Virtual Reality

Second Life

3D worlds: Second Life

Leave a Reply

About this site

Sections

Blogroll

Second Life

vortiCISM

Admin stuff