Second life

Signing up for SL was easy as pie. But after that all went to hell. When I tried to open the SL application it crashed over and over again. I installed new display adapter drivers and it helped a bit. No more crashing, but the graphics didn't work too well, which made the whole experience annoying.

After short tutorials in SL, I wandered around and tried on some clothes for my avatar for a while in some place called 'Discovery Island'. After that I got fed up with the whole thing. Mostly because of my non-working graphics. And you couldn't really talk about social experience: I only saw two other people during my visit. So maybe it needs more users.

SL itself is an interesting virtual world and I've never tried one like it. Although I didn't learn how to teleport to all desired places in SL, I got the idea what it can offer to people. People can set-up their own showrooms and promote their arts and designs or even sell them. Of course this brings up the money. You can use SL's own currency to pay for stuff in SL. For myself I don't see this as a useful feature, but who am I to judge the ones who use it. Of course if doing everything costs something, then it takes the fun out of the game.

For education SL is used already by over 300 universities all over the world, according to Linden Labs. Virtual worlds offer a great opportunity to provide educational content for people throughout the world. For example it would be interesting to take a part in lecture that's held in SL for people all over the world.

Although my first try with SL wasn't too successful, I can see a huge potential in it. Probably in the future the whole internet will be like SL: in three dimensions. But waiting for that, I settle for my first life, since I have enough stuff to do in it.