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August 18, 2006
On Second Life
Quite recently, one of our close friends confessed to us that he'd developed an addiction for Second Life, the online virtual world inhabited, we notice, by the avatars of 524,234 real people. He explained, with a sense of genuine wonderment, that it offered him "some insights into my actions that I find, frankly, embarrassing". When we asked him how long he spent on this virtual world, he pleaded the 5th Amendment, but he did explained that "The relationship you have with yoour avatar is quite indescribable".
The effect it had had on him seemed to be similar to that which might have occurred after a long psychoanalysis.
We're quite curious about the extraordinary richness of these virtual worlds, one aspect of which has been picked up on in the forum by Newman Stephen and Extulit. CBS News recently explored the phenomenon, suggesting
When reality gets hard to take, there's an escape to a parallel universe — a virtual world without end where real people create online personas called avatars. Anything is possible. .It's created its own thriving economy, which has even been written up in Business Week. Even the military is examining their potential.
We're interested in your take on this. Are you smitten by one of these games? Is it preferable to real life? What effect has had it had on you? Where do you think it might lead?
Posted by cw at August 18, 2006 02:32 PM
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Comments
Had a quick look at the Second life site, and I am sorry to say, half a million people have some really big problem.
Still as long as it's not compulsory to join???
Posted by: Marcus at August 18, 2006 03:36 PM
I have not been able to get my head around Second Life up until recently, though I am not actually using it...
This post from Amazon helped me to start to 'get' what Second Life is/can be about though.
Posted by: Stephen ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://bleedingedge.com.au/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 18, 2006 04:06 PM
Picked-up by whom,cw. I'm devastated!!!!!!!!
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/mg19025566.400?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19025566.400
Posted by: extulit at August 18, 2006 05:55 PM
I honestly can't stand playing the game. In real life how long does it take to turn your body around? In Second Life it can take about 5 seconds!
The control system is just pathetic, especially coming from playing other games where you could actually maneuver your character very easily (like World of Warcraft).
Posted by: poedgirl at August 23, 2006 04:32 PM
Alex Barnett has an interesting post trying to grasp what Jeff Barr is up to with Second Life.
If understand Jeff correctly, he wants to build a system that will to allow dynamic pages to be rendered as interactive sites, allowing virtual browsing / full user interaction with those sites inside the virtual world.
Posted by: Stephen at September 25, 2006 06:19 PM