Ok, so for a assignment for my Professional Writing Unit (sounds flash but is actually boring as hell) we have to write a report. And while the options for the senario in which you write the report for are not so vastly interesting, I ended up choosing to be an IT consultant reporting to a/the head honcho about a new idea/concept in social networking.
My first thoughts on the subject of this report were of Facebook and MySpace, followed by 'ugh, boring' and 'Have some consideration for the tutors who have probably already read assignments about these two networks a couple of billion times already.' No, I wanted something more interesting.
Why not Second Life?
Second Life is a virtual, online, 3D world commonly called a metaverse. (The name Metaverse actually came from the sci-fi novel Snow Crash, which I haven't read but would like to - a piece of usless trivia for you.) You can go online, create an Avatar of your liking to be your "virtual body" so to speak.
This was all well and good until I realised that beyond that I knew absolutly nothing about how Second Life operates. So, I decided to do a test run.
And three hours later I was still mucking around on the silly program. Changing my Avatar, making her ridiculously fat, resisting the urge to leave it like that, then changing the clothes, buying some more free clothes, changing into a werewolf just because I felt like it, then learning how to fly (yes, they let you do that in Second Life). The report, however, was still a blank page :/
So, yes, I can now understand why this program is so popular - it has 15, 000, 000 registered users. Previously I always thought that people who actually spend money on this kind of thing are taking it way too seriously.
However, when looking on the Second Life website to register, it occured to me that to spend $1-2 real world money to buy virtual online money (called Linden dollars - L$) it is still some pretty cheap entertainment. Cheaper than going to the movies, cheaper than renting videos, way cheaper than Play Station and Wii. Actually I'd liken it to buying a song off itunes.
In all, I don't know whether I would ever bring myself to spend a fortune on something I could quite easily pay nothing for. But the mystery on why some people do, has been solved - for me at least ;p
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