Second Life is starting to receive some positive press again. As we already know, Second Life is staying alive and now Business Insider Australia are informing us that : Second Life was 13 years early to virtual reality — and it’s getting ready to try again. The trying again part may come as a surprise to those of us who haven’t seen it go away but let’s not quibble, the article is another positive one.
The media may have felt Second Life went away and became a place where nobody knows your name, but the reality has been quite different and this is something that the media are actually starting to notice, as The Business Insider article by Matt Weinberger points out :
Second Life hasn’t gone anywhere. With 900,000 active users a month, who get payouts of $US60 million in real world money every year, and a virtual economy that has more than $US500 million in GDP every year, Second Life is still a world of opportunity.
There are two big reasons for renewed interest in Second Life, one is the virtual reality hype currently going full tilt and the other is Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world, which is making noises before anyone outside of Linden Lab has really seen it.
The Business Insider article touches upon both of these issues, pointing out that with the likes of Facebook, HTC and Sony dipping their toes into the VR market, Second Life’s time may have come at last. Although the article does suggest that VR is more likely to embrace the nextgen world, rather than Second Life itself. However that’s not to say that the article dismisses Second Life as old technology completely.
The article actually points out some good use cases for Second Life, such as San Francisco based TechSoup holding monthly meetings in Second Life because Second Life is a platform that meets their needs when hosting meetings.
The article also points out how user generated content is still a big part of the platform, whilst pointing out that Second Life is not a game and that people have to figure out what to do. As I’ve said before this is both a hindrance and a help in terms of Second Life. Many people don’t like having no set goals or quests, but it’s something that still holds great potential when it comes to people creating their own vision.
The article also talks of community, in particular a community based in 1920’s Berlin :
One Second Life user has led a small but thriving community to create an exacting replica of Berlin circa 1920 for users to tour, provided they’re willing to dress their avatar up in period-appropriate clothing.
However, despite these good use cases the article does seem to think that Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world is where it will all be at, if all goes to plan :
If people are already building virtual classrooms and holding meetings using the relatively primitive first version of Second Life, imagine what kinds of really immersive experiences they could build with a new, more modern version. It provides a common, interconnected platform for all of these experiences.
That will take time and in the meantime, Linden Lab and Second Life should grasp these new positive articles. In the not too distant past, Business Insider posted what were considered negative articles about Second Life, such as Karyne Levy’s article last summer : Second Life Has Devolved Into A Post-Apocalyptic Virtual World, And The Weirdest Thing Is How Many People Still Use It. That article made for some uncomfortable reading, although it did not completely miss the mark.
However more recent articles seem to be giving Second Life a fair press and actually highlighting use cases of Second Life that many of us complained about the media ignoring. Better late than never I guess.
Second Life is far from perfect, but articles that report what people are doing in Second Life that go beyond lazy stereotypes are definitely welcome. Second Life of course was well ahead of its time, as Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab CEO points out in Matt Weinberger’s article :
Shoot us for being 10 years early and doing things people thought were impossible
Quite. The impossible was possible with Second Life, the nextgen world may break even more boundaries, but Second Life trailblazed well ahead of its time and the renewed positive press suggests that the critics may very well have got it wrong when writing off Second Life.