Unconfirmed Reports

I think “the next big thing”, meaning the next IT phenomenon that is going to seriously affect the world, might just be Second Life.

So what is it? Well, a Google search will tell you pretty quickly, or you can visit their hompage. Second Life is a virtual world, a massive three-dimensional space in which people take on a virtual identity and interact with others, travel, make things, and even conduct economic transactions. You can lease property from the company that runs the system (prices are at present about $30 US per virtual acre - but some developed areas are subject to speculation), you can develop objects, or games in Second Life, and sell your inventions to others. There is also advertising, events, as well as some media in Second Life aiming to promote things happening out here in “meatspace”.

There will soon be 1 million residents of Second Life - though this only works out to around 5,000 or 10,000 online at any given moment. An American presidential candidate held an interview recently within the virtual world (known in the community as “The World”), “with 62 other avatars attending (some of them levitating), until [the politician] disappeared in a cloud of pixels.”

In The World, of course, you can fly. You can make a living - apparently - it is thought there are now thousands of profitable business operating there.

You could use this to add another dimension to your life (rather literally), or if you just don’t like your life, you might even use it as a substitute. It’s hard to tell where this thing is going, or how much of our lives and brains it is going to eat up. I find it slightly scary - certainly confronting - and definitely intriguing.

{Extended quote taken from The Economist}