Second Life (abbreviated as SL) and its sister site Teen Second Life are Internet-based 3D virtual worlds launched June 23, 2003 and developed by Linden Research, Inc, which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. Second Life caters for users aged over 18, while Teen Second Life is restricted to users aged between 13 and 18. A free downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another.

Second Life's world (called "the grid") is divided into 256x256m areas of land, called Regions or Sims (short for "Simulators"). Each Region is simulated by a single server, and is given a unique name and content rating (either PG or Mature). The most basic mode of transport is by foot - walking, running, or jumping - but avatars may also fly unaided, ride in vehicles, and teleport (abbreviated to "TP") directly between locations. Land in Second Life is treated as a valuable and scarce commodity; residents can buy, sell, and rent land areas from each other. Mainstream media has focused on a small number of avatars who make large sums of money by doing so.

Built into the client is a simple primitive-based 3D modeling tool that allows any Resident to build simple virtual objects, and a scripting language called LSL ("Linden Scripting Language") which can be used to add autonomous behaviour to these objects. Other content, such as more complex 3D objects (called "sculpties"), textures for clothing or other objects, and animations and gestures, must be created using external software such as Blender, Poser, or Adobe Photoshop. The Second Life Terms of Service ensure that users retain copyright to any content they create, and the server and client provide simple Digital rights management functions. Content may be given away, or sold.

Second Life uses an internal currency called the "Linden Dollar" (L$). L$ are usually obtained via purchase for real money from other users; Linden Lab offers a brokerage service for these transactions. Users may also offer items or services to other users in exchange for L$; services include "camping", working in stores, business management, entertainment (which prominently includes adult entertainment), custom content creation, and other personal services. Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, and works of art. Second Life's own subscription fees, which are based on the amount of virtual land a user owns, are charged in US$; the exchange of L$ for US$ thus enables users who contribute content widely valued by other Residents to avoid paying US$ from their own pocket to retain that content in the world. This is the most popular usage for the exchange of L$ for US$; in spite of attracting large volumes of press coverage, only a very small percentage of Residents derive a net income from the economy. The currency has become the subject of concern in economic circles in regard to possible taxation.

In 2008, Second Life was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the development of online sites with user-generated content. Philip Rosedale, President of Linden Lab, accepted the award.

History of Second Life

Although many people have assumed that the inspiration for Second Life originated from Philip Rosedale's exposure to Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, he has suggested that his vision of virtual worlds predates that book and that he conducted some early virtual world experiments during his college years at the University of California San Diego, where he studied physics.

Rosedale formed Linden Lab in 1999. His initial focus was on the development of hardware that would enable computer users to be fully immersed in a 360 degree virtual world experience. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of "The Rig," which was realized in prototype form as a clunky steel contraption with several computer monitors that users could wear on their shoulders. That vision soon morphed into the software-based application Linden World, where computer users could participate in task-based games and socialization in a 3D online environment. That effort would eventually transform into the better-known, user-centered Second Life.

During a 2001 meeting with investors, Rosedale noticed that the participants were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of Second Life. As a result, the initial objective-driven, gaming focus of Second Life was shifted to a more user-created, community-driven experience.

At the beginning of September, 2008, just over 15 million accounts were registered, although there are no reliable figures for actual long term consistent usage. In January 2008, residents spent 28,274,505 hours "inworld", so on average about 38,000 residents were logged on at any particular moment. Despite its prominence, Second Life has notable competitors, including Entropia Universe, IMVU, There, Active Worlds, Kaneva, and the erotic-oriented Red Light Center.

Recent Developments

Cory Ondrejka, who helped program Second Life, resigned as chief technology officer on December 11, 2007. On March 14, 2008, Philip Rosedale announced plans to step down from his position as Linden Lab CEO. He became chairman of Linden Lab board of directors. Rosedale announced Mark Kingdon as the new CEO effective May 15, 2008.

On July 8, 2008, Mitch Kapor, the chairman of the board of Linden Labs, sparked controversy with his keynote speech at the Second Life in-world 5th birthday celebration by apparently disparaging the current user base of Second Life:

Residents and Avatars

The basic avatar is human in appearance, but may be of either gender, have a wide range of physical attributes, and may be clothed or otherwise customized to produce a wide variety of humanoid and other forms. Avatars may be creative or can be made to resemble the person whom they represent. A single Resident account may have only one avatar at a time, although the appearance of this avatar can change between as many different forms as the Resident wishes. A single person may also have multiple accounts, and thus appear to be multiple Residents (a person's multiple accounts are referred to as alts).

A player's identity is generally less anonymous in Second Life than in other virtual worlds. Any avatar and any object in the world can establish whether or not real payment info is on file for his or her avatar, although they cannot access any personal details from this payment information; this was implemented to provide age verification and also to enable users to distinguish between established paid-for accounts and free alts which can be thrown away at any moment. Some in-world services also require the resident to disclose his or her real name or other personal data to different source, although this is voluntary and hence the resident can choose not to use the services which require such disclosures.

Avatars communicate via local chat, and global "instant messaging" (known as IM). Chatting is used for public localized conversations between two or more avatars; the range of avatars reached is determined by location in the world. IM is used for private conversations, either between two avatars, or among the members of a group, or even between objects and avatars. Unlike chatting, IM communication does not depend on the participants being within a certain distance of each other. As of version 1.18.1.2, voice chat, both local and IM, is also available on the main grid and teen grid using technology licensed by Vivox, a provider of similar services to other MMO worlds. Only avatars can use voice chat.

Avatars and objects can send and receive email as well, although this functionality is rather limited and not widely used. Instant Messages roll over to an avatar's "real life" email when he or she is logged off (if the avatar has opted into this service and has provided a valid email address.)

Localizations

Although Second Life has a large American customer base (approximately 30% of total users as of September 2007), it also has a wide variety of non-U.S. and non-English-speaking customers, and localized versions of the Second Life viewer are available for several languages. 70% of Second Life's active users (as measured by avatar count or active hours) are thus from outside the USA, with Germany, Japan, the UK, France, and Italy (and also Brazil when measured by avatar count only) being the origins of the next band of most active users with between 5% and 10% of total users and activity each. In 2007, Brazil became the first country to have its own independently run portal to Second Life, operated by an intermediary—although the actual Second Life grid accessed through the Brazilian portal is the same as that used by the rest of the worldwide customer base. The portal, called "Mainland Brazil", is run by Kaizen Games, making Kaizen the first partner in Linden's "Global Provider Program". In October 2007, Linden Lab signed second "Global Provider Program" with T-Entertainment Co., LTD., Seoul, Korea and T-Entertainment's portal called "SERA Korea" serves as gateway to Second Life Grid. Previously, starting in late 2005, Linden Lab had opened and run their own welcome area portals and regions for German, Korean and Japanese language speakers.

Land and Fees

Creating a Second Life account, and making use of the world for any period of time, is free. Linden Lab reserve the right to charge for the creation of large numbers of multiple accounts for a single person but at present does not do so.

A "Premium membership", costing US$9.95 per month, allows the user to own a small amount of land, grants extra access to technical support, and provides a stipend of L$300/week. Premium members can own land up to 512 m² without additional fees. Owning larger areas of land incurs an additional fee (which Linden Lab calls "Land Use Fee", but most users refer to as "Tier", because it is charged in tiers) ranging from US$5 a month upwards. There is no upper limit on tier; at the highest level, the user pays US$195 for their first 65536 m², and then US$97.50 per each additional 32768 m² of land. The "tier" fee grants the ability to own land, but the actual land must also be purchased for an initial down payment. Linden Lab usually sells only complete 16 acre (65536 m²) regions at auction (although smaller parcels are auctioned on occasion - typically land parcels abandoned by users who have left), which are bought by Residents and then divided up and resold. Once a Resident buys land he or she may resell it freely and use it for any purpose within the Second Life Terms of Service, provided that it is not used for a Mature purpose in a PG (Parental Guidance) sim.

There is a separate type of land known as Private Estate, consisting of one or more Private Islands or Regions, which has a completely separate set of regulations and pricing. A Private Region is 65536 m² big and costs US$1000 to purchase, followed by US$295 maintenance fee for each subsequent month. The owners of a Private Estate enjoy access to some additional controls that are not available to mainland owners; they have a greater ability to alter the shape of the land.

Residents may also choose to purchase land from another Resident (a "Resident landlord") rather than Linden Lab. On the mainland, a landlord can use the group tools to permit another resident to build on and enjoy the benefits of an area of land in exchange for money; on a private estate, the Estate tools allow the landlord to use the built-in land selling controls to sell land on the estate completely to another user while retaining some control. Residents holding land this way are not required to hold a Premium membership or pay a Tier fee, although typically the landlord will require some form of monthly fee, since the landlord will be paying a monthly fee to Linden Lab. However, Linden Lab acknowledge only the landlord as the owner of the land, and will not intervene in disputes between users. This means, for example, that a landlord can simply withdraw a resident's land, without refunding their money, and Linden Lab will not arbitrate in the dispute.

Technology

Second Life comprises the viewer (also known as the client) executing on the user's personal computer, and several thousand servers operated by Linden Lab.

Client

Linden Lab provides "official viewers" for Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Mac OS X, and most distributions of Linux. Since the viewer is open source, users may recompile it to create their own custom viewers; modified viewer software is available from third parties. The most popular is the Nicholaz Edition; this viewer, produced by Nicholaz Beresford, includes bug fixes developed outside Linden Lab that are not yet included in the Linden Lab code. The Electric Sheep Company has introduced the OnRez Viewer, which makes substantial changes to the design of the user interface. ShoopedLife is a Second Life client that generates randomized hardware details and sends them to the Second Life server as part of the login, rendering the user anonymous, save for their IP address.

An independent project, libsecondlife, offers a function library for interacting with Second Life servers. libsecondlife has been used to create non-graphic third party viewers, including SLEEK, a text browser using.NET, and Ajaxlife, a text viewer that runs in a web browser.

In February 2008 a partnership between Linden Lab and Vollee was announced. In May, Vollee launched an open Beta trial for a Second Life mobile application that lets Residents travel and communicate in-world by logging in from a handset using an existing account. The service, introduced for free, requires downloading a thin client to a 3G or Wi-Fi enabled handset.

A special beta client is available, which is updated very regularly, and is used for constant software testing by volunteers. The beta client connects to a "beta grid" which consists of a limited number of regions mirrored at regular intervals from the real grid. The mirroring process overwrites any changes made on the beta grid, and thus actions taken within it are not stored by the servers; it is for testing purposes only. Every few months, the standard software is replaced by the beta-grid software, intended as a big upgrade. The Second Life user-base is growing rapidly, and this has stimulated both social and technological changes to the world; the addition of new features also provides periodic boosts to the growth of the economy.

Server

Each region in the Second Life "grid" runs on a single core of a multi-core server, running proprietary software based on Debian. These servers run scripts in the region, as well as providing communication between avatars and objects present in the region.

Every item in the Second Life universe is referred to as an asset. This includes the shapes of the 3D objects known as primitives, the digital images referred to as textures that decorate primitives, digitized audio clips, avatar shape and appearance, avatar skin textures, LSL scripts, information written on notecards, and so on. Each asset is referenced with a universally unique identifier or UUID.

Assets are stored in their own dedicated MySQL server farm, comprising all data that has ever been created by anyone who has been in the SL world. As of December 2007, the total storage was estimated to consume 100 terabytes of server capacity. The asset servers function independently of the region simulators, though the region simulators request object data from the asset servers when a new object loads into the simulator.

Each server instance runs a physics simulation to manage the collisions and interactions of all objects in that region. Objects can be nonphysical and non moving, or actively physical and movable. Complex shapes may be linked together in groups of up to 255 separate primitives. Additionally, each player's avatar is treated as a physical object so that it may interact with physical objects in the world. As of April 1, 2008, Second Life simulators use the Havok 4 physics engine for all in-world dynamics. This engine is capable of simulating thousands of physical objects at once.

Linden Lab pursues the use of open standards technologies, and uses free and open source software such as Apache, MySQL and Squid. The plan is to move everything to open standards by standardizing the Second Life protocol. Cory Ondrejka, former CTO of Second Life, has stated that a while after everything has been standardized, both the client and the server will be released as free and open source software.

OpenSimulator

In January 2007 OpenSimulator was founded as an open source simulator project. The aim of this project is to develop a full open source server software for Second Life clients. OpenSIM is BSD Licensed and it is written in C# and can run under Mono environment. The community is fast growing and there are some existing alternative Second Life grids which are using OpenSimulator.

Criticism and controversy

Child sex and pornography

There have been a handful of cases in which users in Second Life were found to have been creating or exchanging child pornography, which has led it to be a common target for media outlets. This includes both real-life photographs and virtual recreations of pornographic scenes involving children, which are illegal in many countries.

Linden Lab has taken action by disallowing sexual ageplay activities between avatars, amongst other rule changes to police the issue. Banning the content directly is not possible, as such content can be created by having a child avatar run a sexual animation intended for adults; neither the avatar nor the animation is illegal (or against TOS) on its own, and their combination does not represent a separate asset. The ban on sexual ageplay has caused difficulty due to the full customizability of Second Life avatars; there is no prescribed way to set or determine the age of an avatar, and it is easy to create an avatar which has the height and stature of an adult but appears child-like with regard to body development (or vice versa), and a person's belief regarding the age their avatar appears to be may not match the belief of other people.

A further issue has arisen with the possibility of underage users accessing adult material on Second Life. Although the Terms of Service state that a user must be over 18 to register a Second Life (as opposed to Teen Second Life) account, they also state Linden Lab makes no legal guarantee that all users of the world are over 18. In response to the fears of residents that they or Linden Lab may be sued if an underage user entered any adult area they had been created, an age-verification system was added enabling residents to further limit access to mature content. Virtual landowners may flag their parcels as "adults only" and block those that have not completed this process. Participation in this program is currently voluntary, though there is no assurance that this feature will always be so., and the program has raised further doubts concerning the need to disclose personal information to verify age , and the actual effectiveness of such age verification Finally, limiting access to a parcel only prevents the avatar entering the parcel; its content can still be viewed from outside by moving the camera.

A further greater concern is that, although the age verification process is voluntary, an account that has not been age verified can be instantly locked out of the world if another user files a report to Linden Lab that the owner of the account is underage. The user is then required to complete age verification or remain banned from Second Life, losing all money and content they had in the world. Since the user cannot log in to Second Life, doing so requires them to contact Linden Lab by telephone or postal mail, which may be difficult or expensive if the customer is not located in the USA. As such, this has become a popular attack mechanism for griefers.

Bragg v. Linden Lab

In 2006, attorney Marc Bragg initiated a lawsuit against Linden Lab, claiming that they had illegally deprived him of access to his account after he discovered a loophole in the online land auction system which allowed regions to be purchased at prices below reserve. Although most users and commentators believed that Bragg would have no chance of winning, a number of legal developments occurred as a result of the case, including a court ruling that parts of the Second Life Terms of Service were unenforceable, due to being a contract of adhesion. The case eventually ended with Bragg's land and account being restored to him in a confidential out-of-court settlement. As such, a settlement created no precedent and thus left users with confusion as to what legal rights they truly had with respect to their virtual land, items, and account. Many of Bragg's legal arguments rested on the claim - advertised on Linden Lab web site - that virtual land within Second Life could be "owned" by the purchasing user, which was removed shortly after the settlement, leading to speculation that this was part of the reason for the settlement.

Regulation

In the past, large portions of the Second Life economy have been comprised by businesses that are now regulated or banned. Changes to Second Life's Terms of Service in this regard have largely had the purpose of bringing activity within Second Life into compliance with various international laws. Typically, Linden Lab offer no compensation for businesses that are damaged or destroyed by these rule changes, which can render significant expenditure or effort worthless.

On July 26, 2007, Linden Lab announced a ban on in-world gambling, in fear that new regulations on internet gambling could affect Linden Lab if it was permitted to continue. The ban was immediately met with in-world protests.

In August 2007, a $750,000 in-world bank called Ginko Financial collapsed due to a bank run triggered by Linden Lab's ban on gambling, which halved the size of the Second Life economy. The aftershocks of this collapse caused severe liquidity problems for other virtual "banks," which critics had long asserted were scams. On Tuesday, January 8, 2008 Linden Lab announced the upcoming prohibition of unregulated banking activities in-world. All banks without real-world charters were shut down on January 22, 2008. After the ban, a few companies continue to offer non-interest bearing deposit accounts to residents, such as the e-commerce site OnRez, and Ancapistan Capital Exchange, which had already adopted a zero-interest policy three months prior to the LL interest ban.

Technical Issues

Due to Second Life's rapid growth rate, it has suffered from difficulties related to system instability. These include system lag, and intermittent client crashes. However, more disturbing faults are caused by the system's use of an "asset server" (actually a cluster), on which the actual data governing objects is stored separately from the areas of the world and the avatars that use those objects. The communication between the main servers and the asset cluster appears to constitute a bottleneck which frequently causes problems. Typically, when asset server downtime is announced, users are advised not to build, manipulate objects, or engage in business, leaving them with little to do but chat and generally reducing confidence in all businesses on the grid.

A more disturbing fault, believed to be caused by the same issue, is "inventory loss in which items in a user's inventory, including those which have been paid for, can disappear without warning or permanently enter a state where they will fail to appear in world when requested (giving an "object missing from database" error). Linden Lab offers no compensation for items that are lost in this way, and will not even record the data for debugging purposes if the user is not a Premium subscriber; although many in-world businesses will attempt to compensate for this or restore items, they are under no obligation to do so and not all are able to do so. This fault alone has caused some users to abandon the world.

Alternate accounts

The policy allowing the easy creation of multiple accounts by the same real person is alleged to have resulted in degraded system performance, and increased incidence of griefing. In addition, several users argued that the ability for single real individual to create an unlimited number of accounts for free had the effect of highly exaggerating the "residence" figures, pointing out that the actual activity of the board was roughly nine percent of the claimed residency figures, with paying membership below two percent. Blogs and forum posts regularly allege exaggerated membership and performance claims.

Fraud and Intellectual Property Protection

Although Second Life's client and server incorporate Digital Rights Management technology, the visual data of an object must ultimately be sent to the client in order for it to be drawn; thus unofficial third-party clients can bypass them. One such program, CopyBot, was developed in 2006 as a debugging tool to enable objects to be backed up, but was immediately hijacked for use in copying objects; additionally, programs that generally attack client-side processing of data, such as GLIntercept, can copy certain pieces of data. Such use is prohibited under the Second Life TOS and may be prosecuted under the DMCA.

However, Linden Lab may ban a user who observed using CopyBot or a similar client, but they will not ban a user simply for uploading or even selling copied content; in this case, Linden Lab's enforcement of intellectual property law is limited to that required by the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires filing a real-life lawsuit. Although a few high-profile businesses in Second Life have filed such lawsuits, the majority of businesses in Second Life do not make enough money for a lawsuit to be worthwhile, or due to real-life work commitments cannot devote enough time to complete one; thus, they are effectively unprotected.

There have also been issues with the use of false DMCA takedown notices. Once a DMCA takedown notice is served, reversing it requires an individual to expose their personal information to the filer (filing a notice does not require this); for the penalty of perjury to be enacted, a lawsuit is required. In addition, the technical process of removal and re-instatement of content on Second Life is subject to failure which can result in content becoming unusable to its owner. This does not effectively prevent content theft; a thief who is subject to a DMCA takedown notice will not challenge it, but will simply create a new account and re-upload the content, often releasing it with all permissions available to maximize propagation "in revenge".

Most users in the world as paying, private individuals are, likewise, effectively unprotected. Common forms of fraud taking place in-world include bogus investment and pyramid schemes, fake or hacked vendors, and failure to honor land rental agreements. Some residents have claimed that there is also a high incidence of sales of content to users unaware of its value (for example, weapons which would require the buyer to own a private island, as firing them in any other area would violate the terms of service; or avatars which appear to represent advanced roles but which, in reality, are nothing more than party costumes due to the inability to support those roles in a world with free social behaviour).

Applications of Second Life

Education

Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities. There are over one hundred regions used for educational purposes covering subjects such as chemistry and English. Instructors and researchers in Second Life favor it because it is more personal than traditional distance learning. Research has uncovered development, teaching and/or learning activities which use Second Life in over 80 percent of UK Universities.

Universities with a presence in Second Life include The University of Queensland, the University of Florida, Anne Arundel Community College, National University of Singapore, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of Louisville, Princeton University, Rice University, Babson College, University of Delaware, Coventry University (UK), University of Derby (UK), Vassar College, the Open University (UK), Harvard University, INSEAD, Pepperdine, Saint Joseph's University, Praxis Business School, Kolkata, India, Drexel University, Ball State, University College Dublin, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh University, Elon University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Kentucky,Bowling Green State University, Ohio University, Ohio State University, City University of New York (CUNY), New York University, Ithaca College, University of Houston, University of Colorado at Boulder, Central Michigan University, Michigan Technological University, Case Western Reserve University, Australian Film Television and Radio School, Stanford, Delft University of Technology, Purchase College (SUNY) and The Open University. Moreover, an Information Systems course offered at the Schulich School of Business in York University has used Second Life as a platform for a virtual business plan project since the Fall term of 2007.

Other institutions include the Info Islands, with library programming sponsored by the Illinois' Alliance Library System and OPAL currently offered online to librarians and library users within Second Life. Another virtual continent called SciLands is devoted to science and technology education. While initially centered around the International Spaceflight Museum, it now hosts a number of organizations including NASA, NOAA, NIH, JPL, NPR, NPL, and a host of other government agencies, universities, and museums. Second Life has also been adopted for foreign language training, with schools such as the British Council (focused on the Teen Grid), the Instituto Cervantes and the Goethe Institut The annual conference SLanguages is dedicated to language learning in Second Life.

Second Life's usefulness as a platform for pre-k-12 education is limited due to the age restrictions on the main grid and the difficulties of collaborating among various educational projects on the teen grid. New approaches to fostering collaboration on the teen grid, such as the Virtual World Campus, offer some hope of overcoming some of these obstacles. For now, however, the primary utility of Second Life for pre-k-12 education is in the education and professional development of teachers and school librarians.

Religion

Religious organizations have also begun to open virtual meeting places within Second Life. In early 2007, LifeChurch.tv, a Christian church headquartered in Edmond, Oklahoma, and with 11 real world campuses in the USA, created "Experience Island" and opened its 12th campus in Second Life. The church reported "We find that this creates a less-threatening environment where people are much more willing to explore and discuss spiritual things". In July of 2007, an Anglican cathedral was established in Second Life; Mark Brown, the head of the group that built the cathedral, noted that there is "an interest in what I call depth, and a moving away from light, fluffy Christianity".

Egyptian owned news website Islam Online has purchased land in Second Life to allow Muslims and Non-Muslims alike to perform the ritual of Hajj in virtual reality form, obtaining experience before actually making the pilgrimage themselves in person.

An LA Times newspaper article has reported that skeptics suggest that believers could find more enriching ways to spend Easter Sunday than tapping out commands to make animated emus pray. This same article goes on to say that some Second Lifers find the idea of virtual worship odd: They would rather spend their online time flying, shopping, or engaging in other activities.

Embassies

The Maldives was the first country to open an embassy in Second Life. The Maldives' embassy is located on Second Life's "Diplomacy Island", where visitors will be able to talk face-to-face with a computer-generated ambassador about visas, trade and other issues. "Diplomacy Island" also hosts Diplomatic Museum and Diplomatic Academy. The Island is established by DiploFoundation as part of the Virtual Diplomacy Project.

In May 2007, Sweden became the second country to open an embassy in Second Life. Run by the Swedish Institute, the embassy serves to promote Sweden's image and culture, rather than providing any real or virtual services. The Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, stated on his blog that he hoped he would get an invitation to the grand opening.

In September 2007, Publicis Group announced the project of creating a Serbia island as a part of a project Serbia Under Construction. The project is officially supported by Ministry of Diaspora of Serbian Government. It was stated that the island will feature Nikola Tesla Museum, Guča trumpet festival and Exit festival. It was also planned on opening a virtual info terminals of Ministry of Diaspora.

On Tuesday December 4, 2007, Estonia became the third country to open an embassy in Second Life. In September 2007, Colombia and Serbia opened an Embassy. As of 2008, Macedonia and the Philippines have opened Embassies in the "Diplomatic Island" of Second Life. In 2008, Albania opened an Embassy in the Nova Bay location. SL Israel was inaugurated in January 2008 in an effort to showcase Israel to a global audience, though without any connection to official Israeli diplomatic channels.

Malta and the African country Djibouti are also planning to open virtual missions in Second Life.

Arts

The virtual creations from the metaverse are disclosed in real life by initiatives such as Fabjectory (statuettes) and Secondlife-Art.com (oil paintings). The modeling tools from Second Life allow the artists also to create new forms of art, that in many ways are not possible in real life due to physical constraints or high associated costs. The virtual arts are visible in over 2050 "museums" (according to SL's own search engine).

Live music performances take place in Second Life, in the sense that vocal and instrumental music by Second Life Residents can be provided from their homes and studios. This is input, via microphones, instruments or other audio sources, into computer audio interfaces and streamed live to audio servers. Similar to webcast radio, the audio stream from the live performance can be received in Second Life for the enjoyment of other Residents. This started with performances by Astrin Few in May 2004 and began to gain popularity mid 2005. For example the UK band Passenger performed on the Menorca Island in mid-2006. Another UK band, Redzone, toured in Second Life in February 2007. Linden Lab added an Event Category "Live Music" in March 2006 to accommodate the increasing number of scheduled events.

By the beginning of 2008, scheduled live music performance events in Second Life spanned every musical genre, and included hundreds of live musicians and DJs who perform on a regular basis. A typical day in Second Life will feature dozens of live music performances.

Live theater is also being presented in Second Life. The SL Shakespeare Company will be performing Hamlet live at the end of 2008. The first scene of Hamlet was produced as a kind of trailer in February, 2008.

In 2007 Johannes von Matuschka and Daniel Michelis developed Wunderland, an interactive SL theatre play at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, Germany.

In 2008 the UK act Redzone announced they would release their new live album only via Second Life.

Second Life in popular culture

Literature

• In early 2008, a Second Life avatar was used as the cover art for Dr. Theodore Rockwell's fiction novel - The Virtual Librarian. The novel was introduced and promoted via Second Life by TheSLAgency
• The scifi book ANIMA: a novel about Second Life written by the avatar Dalian Hansen was published in July 2007. It was the first complete work of fiction based in the 3D virtual environment of Second Life, and the plot included real world connections. It is book one of a trilogy that will include ANIMUS: Of Animus and Men and PERSONA: Persona Publica.
• In Sam Bourne's 2007 thriller novel The Last Testament, Second Life plays an important part in the story and in cracking of codes.
• "Notre Seconde Vie" is a book from the French writer Alain Monnier which translates to "Our Second Life". The novel poses the question "will the Internet replace reading paperbound books one day?".
• The 2007 novel Another Life by Peter Anghelides, based upon the television series Torchwood, features a Second Life-inspired virtual world called Second Reality. Although the literary version is far more advanced than the real Second Life, several features of the real-life Second Life are referenced, including the ability to customize avatars, and at one point in the novel a character is banished to an area similar to Second Life's punishment area, "The Corn Field".
• In The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz, one of the antagonists is a private detective who lives vicariously through his Second Life avatar.
• Halting State by Charles Stross makes a casual reference to Second Life, though it is apparent that many major plot elements have been drawn from this virtual world and other metaverse platforms. (See appearances, below)

Television and Movies

• In 4/8/2008 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart did a segment on Avatar Heroes
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit parodies Second Life in its episode "Avatar".
• In The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert said that Wikipedia is like "Second Life for corporations. In a later episode, in the segment "The Word" (presented by John Edwards) one of the captions stated "Grandkids born in Second Life"
• Second Life was featured prominently, and used as a tool to locate a suspect, in the CSI: NY episode "Down the Rabbit Hole", which aired on October 24, 2007. It was also featured in the episode "NY episode)."
• Dwight Schrute from the US television series The Office is an avid Second Life resident; this was featured prominently in the October 25, 2007 episode "Local Ad". Dwight has an avatar named 'Dwight Shelford' who is able to fly, and creates a virtual world within Second Life named Second Second Life. Jim Halpert is also seen in Second Life later in the episode, and he claims his character is "just to keep tabs on Dwight"; however, Pam Beesly comments on the detail in his character and notes it must have taken him quite some time to make it.
• In Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey, filmmaker Douglas Gayeton explores the mystery of a man from Petaluma, California who uploads his life into Second Life and disappears. HBO Documentary Films bought the ten part series for both HBO and Cinemax.

Music

• Duran Duran were one of the first artists to join the metaverse, and they subsequently wrote their "Zoom In" song with hip-hop mogul Timbaland, clearly pointing about the Second Life experience.
• US modern-rock artist Sheldon Tarsha released the song titled "Second Life" in 2007, focusing attention to Second Life and the growing phenomenon of virtual world social networking sites.
• The Italian singer Irene Grandi figured in her musical video "Bruci la città" some scenes of Second Life gaming.
• Some real life musicians, singers or groups perform live in some Second Life places. Many venues offer these public shows for free.

Other

• Second Life girls are rated #95 on the "Top 100 Hottest Females of 2007" in Maxim.
• Second Life is also parodied in the webcomic Kevin and Kell, in the form of an MMORPG called 9th Life.
• Second Life is parodied by the website Get a First Life by Darren Barefoot, extolling the virtues of meatspace/real life. Material from the site includes false links to such topics as "Go Outside - Membership is Free" and "Fornicate Using Your Actual Genitals." Linden Lab proved that they had a sense of humor when Darren received, instead of a cease and desist, a Proceed and Permit letter.
• Kelly Services, an employment agency, features Second Life in its "break room" for temporary employees.

Appearances in Second Life

• In 2006 former Governor of Virginia Mark Warner became the first politician to appear in a MMO when he gave a speech in Second Life.
• Well known British comedian Jimmy Carr performed a virtual show on Second Life on February 3, 2007.
• Jimmy Kimmel & Jay Z were both made as Second Life characters and Jay Z had a virtual concert on Second Life at the same time as his real life performance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.
• First rock-band touring in Second Life was Beyond the void at beginning of 2007 - they organized virtual concerts in different locations in the virtual world.
• On June 21, 2008, Charles Stross held a conference in Second Life itself to discuss, "[T]he Singluarity in fiction, cutting-edge technologies, [Halting State], and his upcoming novel Saturn's Children

See also

• Cyberformance
• Emerging Virtual Institutions
• Interactive online characters
• Simulated reality
• Active Worlds
• Social simulation
• Virtual reality

References

External links

• Official website
• Virtual Vacation: Second Life as a Travel Destination by Cherilyn Parsons, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, March 9, 2008
• Second Life: a virtual nanny state by Nathalie Rothschild, spiked, Tuesday, August 7, 2007
• Glimpse Inside a Metaverse: The Virtual World of Second Life by Philip Rosedale and Cory Ondrejka, Google TechTalks, March 1, 2006
• Second Life Article - Mobile Compatibility
• Law and Economics in Second Life
• Second Life tutorial in Hebrew
• The Power of Virtual Worlds in Education: A Second Life Primer and Resource for Exploring the Potential of Virtual Worlds to Impact Teaching and Learning
• Interview with Second Life's creator, Philip Rosedale