Second Life is a complete waste of time.

It finally hit me. I had to read the comments left by these diggers to realize that there really is no point to second life. I thought that it might interesting to build objects because I've always been interested in CG/3D Animation. What was I thinking? These guys are absolutely right. It's nonsense. Now that I think about it, the graphics do suck, the laggy connections don't help either. The world is dominated by furries (anthropomorphic animals), cybersex freaks (scary), and the few who were there buying virtual land during the land rush. I agree, the major corporations ARE just trying to be cool and the SL is just one big over-hyped 3d chat. I guess I got caught up in the hype.

God, before I waste any more time with it, I'm going to remove it from my PC.

Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds


Businessweek.com has posted an article about the Virtual World Gold Rush which details the growing popularity and the resulting business opportunities of various online virtual world's.

What do the virtual world's offer to advertisers?
Due to their appeal to adolescents, virtual world's offer a direct link for advertisers to market to the prized teen demographic.

Traffic to these sites continue to grow exponentially.

... consultancy Gartner (IT) predicts that 80% of active Internet users will join a virtual world by the end of 2011.

A short list of virtual world's

Club Penguin (kids)
http://www.clubpenguin.com/
(new horizon interactive)

Webkinz (kids)
http://www.webkinz.com/index.html
(ganz)

RuneScape (teen/gaming)
http://runescape.com/

World of Warcraft (teen/gaming)
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml
(blizzard)

Second Life (teen/adult)
http://secondlife.com/
(linden labs)

Habbo (teen)
http://www.habbo.com/
(sulake)

There (teen)
http://there.com/
(Makena Technologies)

Playdo (teen)
http://playdo.com/eng/munity.asp

Worlds (teen/adult)
http://www.worlds.com/

Virtual Magic Kingdom (kids)
http://vmk.disney.go.com/vmk/en_US/index?name=VMKHomePage
(disney)

Weblo
http://www.weblo.com/
(Oak Investment)

Virtual MTV (teens)
http://www.m80teams.com/register/index3.html?virtualmtv
(viacom)

Coming Soon:

PlayStation Home
(sony)

Second Life Part 2

I had briefly played around with SL last summer to see what all the buzz was about. Initially, I was very impressed, though I didn't do much more than explore the different islands of the virtual world. I was a little disturbed by what was going on with some of the "residents". There were areas that allowed you to purchase strange objects and animations that I can only assume were intended to be used for cybersex. That immediately ruined it for me and I uninstalled it. Why invest so much time in something that would be used for that? It wasn't the only thing going on, but it existed throughout.

I have since read more articles about Second Life and the potential for business and marketing. After installing SL again, I noticed the graphics engine seems a bit improved. The orientation area where you begin is much easier to interact with and to navigate. This has renewed my interest in SL and its potential.

I need to find the time to learn more on how to build and texture 3D objects and animations in SL. This requires a premium account which I'm not quite sure I'm ready to pay for. It could be interesting to start a consulting business that would help companies use SL as an opportunity to promote their goods and services.

Some of the High profile brands with a presence in Second Life (April 2007):

(View as Map)

Warner Bros
Cnet
Fox Atomic
Intel
Sun
Pontiac
Comcast
Laguna Beach
NBC
One Manchester
IBM
Addidas
Reebok
AOL
Dell
Weather Channel
AMD
Nissan
BMW
American Apparel
Colorado Tech
Ohio University
MIT
Cornell
Princeton
University of Minnesota
Mercedes
University of Herts
University of Oxford
Logica
UNC
Toyota
movietickets.com
Philips
STA Travel
Autodesk
ING Renault F1
Cisco
Murray State
Woodbury University
Telus
Unitrin
University of S Denmark