Saturday, August 25, 2007

What is Second Life and what is Linden Lab?

Second Life, shortened by most to “SL”, is an online virtual world where anybody with a broadband connection and a reasonably powerful computer can interact, create, educate, play, and work in a graphically-rich 3D environment. It is an immersive space where you interact with your surroundings and other people through an avatar (a representation of a human, or non-human, being) that walks, flies or drives around.
Second Life is a 3-D metaverse (beyond the physical universe) or open-ended platform for communication, socializing, creativity, prototyping, gaming, entertainment, business, non-profit work -- and more.

This software and online interactive environment is not the game you may be used to from The Sims Online or World of Warcraft, although it has some of the same features and you can play various games within it and with it. It is big enough so that you can take it very seriously and make a real income from it, yet small enough so that you can always pull away and say "it's only a game".

Linden Lab is the company that created and maintains Second Life. Lindens are the employees of Second LIfe. "Lindens" is also the name of the game currency.

2 comments:

dexlovex2 said...

Secondlife has grown a lot since it started. At times I think it has grown too quickly. There is many issues that has come with this growth, among them lag and missing inventory, which can take the fun out of Seconlife.

Archer said...

Q...What is Second Life?
A...The most overhyped of any "virtual world". The platform is shaky and incredibly unreliable. Customer service is nonexistent for the most part. The environment is rife with Intellectual Property theft, and
basically only exists to serve as a beta testing ground for Linden Lab.

Q...What is Linden Lab?
A...The creators of the overhyped virtual world of "Second Life". Employing developers who are too scattered in their efforts by a witless corporate leadership to actually stabilize their shaky platform, this company has a reputation for poor customer service, even poorer public relations, and spastic action when it comes to any sort of controversy either real or percieved.

Both SL and LL have been swimming with the sharks of online gambling, internet pedophilia, content-theft, trademark infringement, and human sexual slaveplay for years, now.

Oh...and RealPlayer sucks, too.