Second Life (SL) is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab and is accessible via the Internet. It is a free client program called the Second Life Viewer - enables its users, called Residents to interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world. Second Life's admixture of fantasy and reality is intoxicating and it has long been seen as the bell-wether for the growing interest in virtual spaces. (http://secondlife.com/whatis/?lang=en-US)
Yolanda Hirvi
The Finnish Second Life´s ”guru” well known Yolanda Hirvi, as Annika Keskinen in real life, describes Second Life as following:
*It's cartoony, and it is social space experience in a new dimension.* Annika calls 3-D realms such as Second Life the "next phase of the Internet's evolution" and she says that it may have "the same level of impact" as the first Web explosion. It's cheap, environmentally friendly and not nearly as weird as you might think!*
Annika
*I work as a new media designer and my speciality is content creation in the virtual world of Second Life. I create three dimensional environments for businesses and education (e-learning) I see myself more of an artist than a business woman or a computer geek. I am lucky that I have found Second Life, that really changed my first one too. I strongly belive that Second Life is the prototype of what internet is going to be in the future, and I am very proud to be one of the pioneers.*
The future Business in Second Life
Nowadays many firms are using Second Life to collaborate. Companies want you to walk into three-dimensional Web worlds to browse virtual libraries, says Annika.
*It's not going to replace the two-dimensional Web but it's going to integrate and compleme. Every day more big companies turn their attention to this new medium, realizing that it really represents something new. - I'm now convinced that one day Second Life or something related to it will become a Google/Yahoo/MySpace-scale company.*
So what's beginning to catch the attention of huge corporations ? That is something potentially far more profound than a new online pastime. It's the ability to use Second Life as a platform for a whole new Net - this one in 3-D and even more social than the original - with huge opportunities to sell products and services.
The future of Second Life and education
The future of education lies in virtual reality. Nevertheless, there are educators who believe the opposite.. Annika points out that it is vital that educators become familiar with Second Life, other virtual worlds and realities. Educators who ignore virtual reality , do so at their peril and will be left behind in the very near future. Whilst SL may not be the preferred virtual world of the future, skills learned in SL will be transferable.
Second Life and Gen Y
Annika believes that Second Life will not become main stream with Gen Y students because they are only interested in communication tools that are cheap, quick and easy to use like Facebook and cell phone text.
*-But it might be that, one day outstrip the web as a means for people to communicate and work together. -Because virtual worlds like Second Life do not impose language barriers like the web does - that almost certainly means their ultimate utility range is larger.*