“(Interview) Second Life: But not the last by a long shot”. Skinnie Entertainment Magazine.

Sitting with your grandfather can be especially entertaining when he leans over the table, pushes his huge glasses up to the top of his nose and says, “You know, the internet is going to change EVERYTHING,” interrupted by you smart-phone buzzing to remind you about the doctors appointment you have in ten minutes – the phone tells you where you are, determined by global positioning satellites, and tells you the quickest route to your physician’s office. Grandpa’s a bit late to the party.

When 40-year-olds with makeup on CNN and FoxNews discuss Second Life as being the next revolution in communication, networking, and virtual reality, one has to ask, “Haven’t ANY of these people seen Lawnmower Man?” For the majority of us who know the difference between a back button and a start button, there is no surprise that the success of Second Life, a massively multiplayer online role-playing experience, is not the result of revolutionary design, programming, or innovation, it has simply been marketed better than any other similar product out there – oh, and the users are getting smarter.

Ten years ago, Dragon’s Eye Productions, Inc., released Furcadia, a massively multiplayer online social game that, for free, allowed players to create a personalized character to represent their virtual selves, called an Avatar, and interact with other players online. Eventually, players were able to obtain land, create their own home and invite others to talk and play. This was in 1996, when most people in the United States still did not have a computer in their home. Well, times have changed. Computers are everywhere – and it almost seems antiquated to say that.

Frankly, there are dozens of similar pieces of software out there on the market, but what makes Second Life stand out from all the others is the buzz created by a single word – marketing. Consider this: the Internet, in large, exists as a vast library. Any time you type a word into a search box in Google or MySpace, billions of pages are suddenly at your finger tips. Out of the infinite possibilities of pages you could click on, one thing is certain; you will see an ad somewhere along the way. Companies such as Google do not make a product to sell on store shelves – people invest in Google just because they are betting that the company will sell more adspace to other companies than anyone else. Well folks, here comes Second Life. Instead of interacting with the web in a click and scroll scavenger hunt, Second Life allows you to explore a virtual world, socially interact with others, go to college, attend business meetings, and even engage in online commerce (yes, you can actually buy things in Second Life). Eventually, there are going to be a lot of billboards littering the landscape. Companies are more than willing to pay.

Companies such as Illusion Factory are already taking part in this online revolution, but not in the way that you are thinking. Chief executive officer, Brian Weiner is shepherding his digital flock into something truly unique, being one of the few (if not the only) company to be focusing on philanthropic purposes (that’s “charity” for you illiterate nubes) in the virtual universe. Brian explains one his first projects in Second Life, a virtual learning center: “We built 20 pods that people climb into and fly out to the middle of the room so you are in a nice circle and there is a streaming whiteboard. My thought process was that I would get a professor of cardiology from Harvard and he would do a very specialized demonstration of some form of a heart surgery of one of the valves. He would lecture to people from all different continents with students sitting on the floor. We would bring in a huge three-dimensional heart and then we do a Fantastic Voyage moment and go into the valve and watch it work. I think the opportunity to teach things in the virtual space allows teaching methodologies that have never been available.” Illusion Factory, a company which is based upon the guiding principle of doing the impossible, will surely be a power play in the emerging virtual world – the real Internet. Watch for other such companies to spring into existence soon, pushing the mark even higher for innovation.

Second Life offers users a number of features that are not new to this genre of software, but will seem special to those who before which have never interacted online with others in this fashion. Registration is simple and easy, choosing a username, which consists of a first name of your creation and a last name chosen from a drop-down list of pre-established family names within the Second Life universe. The whole process takes less than a few minutes. The client (software package) is then downloaded and is about 35 megabytes for Windows users (God help you) and 65 megs for Mac enthusiasts. After a quick, mindless installation, you can log in and be walking around the world of Second Life. New users must complete a number of introductory tasks designed to teach them how to interact within the virtual world – yes, walking lessons, dressing lessons, etc. For the seasoned pro, this part really bites. Within twenty minutes of first browsing onto secondlife.com, you can be online, chatting with friends, building your own house or business, and avoiding Harvey, the 36-year-old pervert who lives with his mother.

Even the most experienced gamer may have difficulty when first being introduced to Second Life. Initially, when you first register, you must choose an avatar from only a handful of body types. You can’t even change the hair color when first setting up your account. One may find themselves deciding if they want to look like the guy from Queer As Folk or that guy who was stalking you last time you went to the club. When first being introduced to the gaming environment, it is very difficult to understand where you are spatially in relation to everything else. Ironically, Orientation Island, where you first are placed in the game, can be a very disorientating experience, especially if you have a suffering internet connection. Over a very short amount of time, most users will be able to interact with the universe of Second Life with very little difficulty.

What does make Second Life revolutionary is its employment of uBrowser, a piece of Second Life’s software engine that is used to display web pages on any surface of any 3D object. What this means is that any user can create a building that shows a web page of their design in the Second Life universe. This translates to huge opportunities for businesses that are seeking an virtually new market of adspace. Anyone who can place their money on that bet may reap unimaginable profits. Get this – the Linden Dollar is now a currency that is actually traded against the U.S. Dollar. That is something that no other software can boast.

So, users who are looking to do research for that next essay probably will not find much use for Second Life – yet! However, if you want to be part of the next chapter of a true virtual reality, sign up today. Second Life will not be the last piece of software of its kind, but finally people are buzzing about this technology. The future is ours for the designing.

Published in April, 2007, Skinnie Entertainment Magazine.