Second Life announces the world's biggest virtual party

By Davey Winder
Sunday, 22 June 2008 03:40

Networking

It hardly seems possible, but the immersive 3D virtual fantasy world of Second Life is 5 years old. To celebrate, Linden Lab is staging a Virtual World's Fair which might just be the biggest birthday party never held.

It was on June 23rd 2003 that the 3D world inhabited by avatars known as Second Life emerged from the shadows of Beta testing and opened its doors to an awaiting public. To celebrate this 5th birthday, the company behind the virtual phenomena has announced an ambitious two week long party which will run until July 7th.

The Second Life World's Fair will mix roundtable discussions with Linden Lab employees and 'thought leaders' (always a must at any good birthday bash) with creativity showcases (ditto) and, thank goodness, a huge party. Taking place within a virtual fairground setting, moving around the truly vast Second Life landscape, this could well be the biggest virtual party ever.

Given that Second Life is all about escapism, fantasy and immersion the chances are that it will certainly be a party not to be forgotten. Yet it is all too easy to forget that what Linden Lab has created is more than just a virtual playground for the broadband generation. It has created a virtual world with a very real and vibrant economy.

The seeds of economic success were sewn right at the start, in November 2003 Linden Lab decided to allow Second Life residents to retain all IP rights for the content that they created in-world. At the time many so-called experts questioned the business sense in such a move.

However, understanding that user-generated-content was the key to building both an attractive environment and an involved community, Linden Lab were soon proved right. The addition, less than a year later, of a custom animation scripting engine to aid the content development process just accelerated this participatory growth.