Credible reporting on Second Life from Newsweek at NevilleHobson.com

Link: Credible reporting on Second Life from Newsweek at NevilleHobson.com.

I can't wait to pick up this issue of Newsweek on the news stand. It finally gives some credibility and validity to Second Life and is the perfect media news source to give to my husband and my dad, both of whom scratch their head and admit they "don't get it."

My husband did, however, email me recently excited about hearing a professor - "this guy was old" - talking about Second Life on NPR. He admitted after hearing that he realized maybe his wife wasn't so crazy after all. Well, just a little crazy.

What is weird about the Second Life cover of Newsweek is that just yesterday - before I knew anything about the issue - I created this image to represent me on my Twitter page, MySpace page, and other places online:

Not as perfectly matched as the Newsweek image, but I really like the way it turned out.

Neville Hobson pointed out the 10 things you must know about Second Life - and I agree with him. Second Life is NOT a game.

That is one of the things that bugs me about The Traveling Avatar's Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life. He always starts off his broadcasts taking about "tips and tricks for the game Second Life."

Like it says on #1 of the 10 things list:

In the beginning, there was Philip Rosedale. “I’m not building a game, I’m building a country,” said the brains behind Second Life. Today his project is actually more than a country, it’s a multiplatform metaverse, designed to allow techies the freedom to create their own community across multiple computer servers. There are no dragons to slay, no levels to reach—and the possibilities for creativity, business and social interaction are endless. And it’s still not a game.

Related Links:

Alternative Universe - By Jessica Bennett and Malcolm Beith

China's Virtual World: Roam Un-Free" by Jonathan Adams

Video: Navigating Second Life

Q&A with Philip Rosedale, developer of Second Life

Don't Call It A Game

Comments

[TA]

You might want to get in line behind the people who plan to bludgeon me for calling Neko's a subspecies of Furries :P.

I don't know if I'd 100% stand behind my "it's a game comment" however, lack of levels, dragons, or a "point" don't automatically make something more serious than entertainment.

The Sims, for example, can be played pretty much any way you'd like to play it, but it's still a game.

Anywho, I call it a game mostly because I deal with new players, and saying "tips and tricks to the vastly important and life changing virtual world Second Life" might scare them off :P SL is a lot of peoples first experience with (prepare to grit your teeth) Real hardcore online gaming, and I don't want to scare the heck out of them.

Regardless, potato, poh tah toe :) as long as you're havin fun right?

-TA

[aliza at babyfruit]

Hi TA - you could call it the Virtual World Second Life...

[Kay]

This blog got me to look at Second Life from my isolated one as a caregiver in Eagle River AK.....I had two rooms on Diversity University MOO in the 90s, and was on Lambda MOO sometimes....and an avatar-based MOO whose name I can't remember (DU and the core community there was my home!) Sherry Turkle's "The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit" (and "Life on the Screen" too!) got me f-2-f with the nature of my being-at-home in virtual worlds--being-at-home "inside" the computer = the hook so many folks don't get. But for an "old person" like me, Second Life is part of a long and active history of virtual communities, so it's fun to see the re-invention of the wheel avatar-based-community hype that faster Internet connection has enabled. Twitter is attractive, too, short and fast, all learned from Aliza's blogging about them......wow and thanks! But somebody should write about people active on MOOs 15 years ago and how they "live" on Second Life--that I'd love to hear.

[Kay]

Actually Clay Shirky, who writes about Second Life at Valleywag, talked about the MOO-origins 7 months ago....."A story too good to check"...and reminds us of Howard Rheingold in 1993 about all this virtual world-new identity being batted around now.....plus ça change....--> history's fun!