This document provides an overview of Second Life, a virtual world platform, and discusses some of its features and uses. It describes how Second Life allows users to interact through avatars, explore the virtual world, socialize and participate in activities. It also discusses some challenges with Second Life, including the potential for child pornography, gambling issues, and addiction. Additionally, it outlines how some companies use Second Life for meetings and events, and how the media industry has utilized it.

1. Second Life: Exploring a Virtual World By Vanessa Hagicostas, Lindsay Cover, John Lashnits, Ricardo Morales

2. Introduction to SL Second Life is an Internet -based Virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc which is also known as Linden Lab. It came to international attention through mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. A client program which can be downloaded, called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called “Residents", to interact with each other through virtual images called avatars. Furthermore, it creates and provides an advanced social web. Residents can explore, communicate with other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items and services from one another.

3. What was my experience as a new comer to SL A worldwide community with a central focus on accomplishing his or her own missions in the game A community in which many were welcoming, but others were looking for “fresh meat” to take advantage of A chance to explore fantastical possibilities that could not normally be accomplished in everyday life The opportunity to meet people of many diverse skills, abilities, demographics, languages and jobs, without spending a penny to travel the world.

4. Helped my progress on a Learning Curve Chat and communicate with one another on a virtual perspective. I found it very fascinating that I can actually have a conversation with another resident virtually. Taught me to think before I act I also realized that not everyone is who they claim to be and getting a “virtual trust” is sometimes not even what it may seem to be. As you progress in the game, you learn more about yourself, but you also get access to more features, allowing you to progressively learn.

5. Downfalls creating or exchanging child pornography. This includes both real-life photographs and virtual recreations of pornographic scenes involving children. It could occur on any internet based web site, it is notable on Second Life because of its substantial size, centralized hosting model and opportunities for private transactions. Second Life is designed to ensure that content, especially avatar-related content can be mixed and matched and created personally by the resident. As a result, almost any content can be combined with one another, and restrictions cannot be easily enforced on this, not even by the residents who created the avatars

6. Downfalls Just like child pornography, gambling is an epidemic that is growing in Second life. Prohibiting gambling in Second Life has proven difficult. Second Life is working with authorities to gain guidance into the growing epidemic. Second Life's currency, or any real-world currency. Second Life can be an ADDICTION. People begin to live exclusively to play the game. The game, being random and global, can lead to people masquerading as those they are not. In turn, this can lead to dangerous situations, similaring to those of MySpace and other social networking sites. With a game as popular as Second Life, many users are garnered on one server, which can serve as the perfect point-of-attack for hackers looking to inflict maximum damage or proliferation of their attack, with minimal work. Also, the popularity can make it a demon for denial-of-service attacks, helping to bring the net to a grinding halt.

7. Second Life and Individuality Second Life acts as a communication medium much like our real lives Unlike other online networking platforms (AOL, Skype, Facebook, Myspace), Second Life provides us with a better sense of being in the same ‘room’ The ability to customize and modify Avatars allows a better depiction of individual personalities than screen names alone

8. Communicating in the Workplace Companies such as Cisco, IBM and Dell are using SL to host meetings. This allows the employees from all parts of the world to meet in one common place. It is also a costless way to bridge employee communications.

9. Second Life Effect on Commerce The entertainment and media industry is even utilizing SL. MTV recently used SL to host a fashion show Existing business, such as Dell, can even sell their products via SL. Second Life is still in its early stages. It will be exciting to see what types of new interactions will be explored in the future!

10. What Was It Like To Work On A Cyber Team? Working on a Cyber Team via Second Life had both its advantages and disadvantages Because no one on the team had met and had a different level of familiarity with Second Life, it was difficult to coordinate our expectations of the project as well as a time when we could all discuss what needed to be done and explore Second Life together However, because this presentation could be done through limited communication and email, it was convenient that everyone could work on their share of the project in their own time and at his or her own pace. Because working on a Cyber Team had its challenges, it was important to find a variety of ways to communicate with teammates about the project and Second Life itself

11. What Did You Learn About This? Email was the simplest form of communication, but Second Life offers a list of capabilities to communicate with other avatars, making it easier to work in a group of people we have never met. Second Life could be used to aid communication between partners through the creation of groups as well as the capability to communicate with other avatars through the use of instant messages and by being able to tag places if there was something that you wanted to share with a team mate Creating groups allowed the members to create notes and place them in the group inventory for other members to see. Members of the group could also make notices is for that could include places to visit and teleportation capabilities

12. Effective SL Sims: Presidential Campaign 2008 Some candidates have established campaign headquarters in SL. They raise awareness, name recognition and they facilitate grass roots campaign efforts.

13. Interactive Campaigning SL residents can take t-shirts, flags and lawn signs to put on their property and show support for their candidate. Residents can also donate Linden dollars to help maintain the costs of having a campaign HQ in second life.

14. Delivering Their Message Candidates use integrated multimedia platforms such as YouTube to deliver their ideas about how they would lead America.

15. Delivering Their Message Here, John Edwards uses a series of images to construct a narrative about his qualities as a leader.

16. Showing Your Support Some organizations are actively involved in promoting certain candidates. The Liberty Bar supports Ron Paul, and an SL resident can make donations to his campaign here.

17. Showing Your Support Stores such as this one sell items that second life residents can use to show support. Also, they have a leader board so residents can see which candidates are the most popular.