Submission Date : 2007/07/10
Second Life ：Social Effect
Introduction:
Second Life opened to the public in 2003 and is the creation of an American company called Linden Lab, which spent four years developing it. It is what’s known as an online virtual world. This is an internet-based 3-D environment in which players create virtual characters – known as avatars – for themselves and use them to explore what’s around them and interact with each other. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 7,931,406 Residents from around the globe.
Second Life resembles an idealized version of Earth, with shopping malls, museums, beaches and cinemas. There are futuristic Blade Runner-style cities and places that resemble ancient Japan. The world even has a newspaper (www.secondlifeherald.com), a television station, and its own currency – the Linden dollar, which you must use to buy things.
How to become a resident of second life :
To join, you first create an avatar, then name it, clothe it and give it a physical appearance. After being sent to a training area where you are shown how to do all the basic things, you are free to explore with your avatar. So there are two types of memberships
- Your first Basic account is FREE, and includes access to events, shopping, building, scripting- everything you can do in Second Life. After your first free Basic Account, each Additional Basic Account (known in-world as an "alt" account) costs a one-time fee of $9.95.
- A Premium Second Life account, starting at $9.95 a month, allows you to own land on which you can build, display, entertain and live. You also receive Weekly stipend which is L$300/wk including the ability to submit a Support Ticket and engage in a text chat session with our support teams.
Economy
This Internal Unit-of-Trade with Real Market...