And One More Thing That Makes Us Special

But we feel there is something special about it. And we all have our theories about what make second life special.

 

Many will praise user generated content, whether because of the posibility to have fun building and scripting, or possibility to express themselves, or diversity of buildings and even species in the world, or its sociological meaning. Some will say it's the converitbility of linden dollars into US dollars and vice versa. Posibility to earn, posibility to start business or to do your first life business. Education too. You can even play games. And you can do so many other things I forgot or more likely am not aware of. The last, but no way the least, is all the social stuff… from networking to cybersex.

Unlike traditional games and unlike other virtual worlds in the broadest sense of the word, second life is a mish-mash of a large number of very different things. And, consequently, its residents are very different people with different needs, goals, behaviour and perception of our world. On a busy sim you can find yourself standing near the professor (in both lives) whose avatar is very alike the photo on the first life tab of the profile. On your other side is a dragon or a furry came from post-apocalyptic or dark city. Or dark post-apocalyptic city. That girl twenty meters from you wears collar and silks. Around us are scripters, lawyers, alts, escorts, bloggers, griefers, Lindens, artists, drama-queens, gamers… I don't know… all of us.

Yes, there are negative sides of that. So many times we don't understand each other, so many times we expect that other residents think like us or perceive the whole thing like we do. And please, just for three of five seconds imagine all the faces enlighted by monitors, all the different rooms and offices, all variety of clothing styles.

The other negative effect of in-world variety is low retention. So many people couldn't find their way or their story in all this. Or they haven't liked the chaos.

But a certain percent of those who registered are living their second lives.  There is a huge number of people on the grid. And not only that all of them have one role and one activity. Some of them do, but most has many of them. Nobody (including myself) knows what I'll be doing next time when I log in. Will I build, talk with somebody, dance, have sex or just sit under the tree and stare at the top of the hill. Or it will be one long session that includes all of that.

Now do the math. All the activities multiplied with all the avatars multiplied with all the humans….