Gamer - Second Life

"Second Life" became a viral sensation after it's launch in 2003, offering a digital space where “residents” could spend real money on virtual goods like clothes and property. It was a novel idea to launch an open world where people could create, interact and build real relationships in cyberspace. Many like to state that it is not a game, as in there is play inside the medium but that it is designed as a community that needs no game play.

This online community fizzled out but is still around today with 900k subscribers according to the parent company, as of this month. You just rarely hear about in the news anymore like you did in the early two thousands.

Brief History

The creator of Second Life Philip Rosedale left the platform to spear head the next addition of a virtual world. On March 14, 2008, Rosedale announced plans to step down from his position as Linden Lab CEO. High Fidelity was founded in April 2013 formed to create a next-generation virtual reality platform featuring low latency, spatialized 3D audio, high-detail environments, realistic avatars, and a working economy built on blockchain. Since then we have been promised an upgrade to the virtual world with eye tracking from avatars to make them more realistic. It seems that everything is still in the works.

Virtual worlds, at their best, can allow us to celebrate diversity. I found new parts of myself through my avatar, and so have many others. -Philip Rosedale

It is the Economy Stupid!

One of the early benefits and attractions of a second life was the virtual economy. It has been for many a vibrate alternative to work and play. People have made millions with buying and selling land or creating businesses. The idea that it has its own currency but that it can convert to dollars has been attractive to many. People for years though this platform found a way to stay at home and make a living. Their aviators were able to go to work faster and in the venue you can transport easily, from place to place or even fly.

Stun Your Readers

Our sense of touch is how we set and understand the boundary between ourselves and the rest of the world. For that reason, and from the very start, @SecondLife had a physics engine enforcing collisions between avatars. Another difficult but vital component of a metaverse. -Philip Rosedale

In the last decade Second Life for the most part has gone unnoticed as users continue to enjoy its world. Even Philip Rosedale has less than 20k followers on Twitter and even less comments per post. It has gone the way of MySpace and AOL but it was the original internet #metaverse creation. As #virtualreality comes into the culture, may it have a resurgence? More than likely something better will emerge that is inspired by it. It is hard to say if many of the #scifi works like the #Matrix wasn't in fact inspired by this early version. Either way I can not see a #VR reality that doesn't operate much like Second Life does today.