Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Annie Gaus, a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times has written In virtual reality, Second Life prepares for its second act. Annie interviews Ebbe Altberg. Starting with Second Life as a virtual world and moving into talk about Project Sansar.
Nothing new here to those following Sansar in the SL Blogosphere. But, it is a nice article.
Second Life™ is in the news again. It is mentioned in an article about pedophilia. So, is Morrowind, Elder Scrolls. It isn’t what you think. The article is about how those aware of their problem are sublimating (especially in psychoanalytic theory) divert or modify (an instinctual impulse) into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity) and controlling their desire using virtual worlds.
A Dr. Seto points out that “prosocial” pedophiles—ones who experience empathy for children or shy away from harmful sexual behavior—more often than not don’t know where to turn for help.
Historically we have been down this road with other differences thought of as illnesses. Homosexual preference is not a disease or mental illness. Their gender identity is different. We have learned a lot about what shapes gender identity.
Second Life™ made it in the news this week, again. This time at WIRED in an article titled: 5 Companies You Thought Were Doomed But Are Actually Fine (For Now). The title explains most of the story. The companies are; Dropbox, Pandora, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Second Life.
There is nothing in the story we don’t already know. Nor do I think it will inspire anyone to come check out Second Life. But, its press… and positive…
The Boston Globe has run an article titled: Second Life shows new promise as virtual forum for diabetes education. The article is about the Boston Medical Center training diabetics how to manage their condition via classes in Second Life™.
The Center did a study to see how effective the class was. They assigned half the study participants to a class in SL and the other half to a class at the hospital. Quoting the Globe:
The trial was a hit. Mitchell said the Second Life participants didn’t just sit in on the course sessions. They made friends, swapped recipes, had dance sessions, hung out. Most tellingly, participants wanted to know if they could involve their families in the game too.
The results were both groups progressed at the same rates and improved in equal amounts. But, it was the SL group that evidenced more engagement and learning persistence.
Most of the news coverage of Second Life™ is about SL. But, the blog Business 2 Community has an article about how one can use SL to promote a web site. Different.
See: How You Can Use Second Life to Promote Your Website.
The author Lori Soard promotes SL as having 20 million users… that should tell you something about this author’s knowledge of SL… or lack of… At best we probably have about a million or two unique active users in a year.
Lori presents a couple of case studies; Novelist Karen Kay and the idea of Health Promotion.
The odd thing is the novelist used her RL connection with readers to promote a class in SL. Seems this isn’t using SL for promotion, just the opposite. Then Lori says, “…This is a fun way to attract new customers, or in her case readers, you might not otherwise attract.” Have you ever tried to attract people in SL to an event? What results did you get?
Second Life is part of a presentation at the Burlington Performing Arts CentreI (Burlington ON, L7S 1T7). The performance calendar describes it this way:
The online virtual world of ‘Second Life’ stretches thousands of kilometers and millions of visitors. While searching for her lost sister, Jessica struggles to find out what – and who – are real. Life and its double are at stake in this multi-media exploration of loss in the digital age. The Second Life was devised by the company through workshops with light, movement, and text over a four-year period. The Second Life explores the increasingly fluid relationship between the real, the digital and the spiritual.