Davey Winder
Sunday, 22 June 2008 03:40
Business IT -
Networking
Page 1 of 2
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.