I’m sure most of you have heard of SL and even probably some of you have visited for a while. I was one of those people.. After a month or so, I realised this wasn’t any Neuromancer. Now I can safely say I haven’t been online in Second Life for at least a couple of months. The reason? I think it’s just getting too big and crap:

For one thing, the application & server model (from what I’ve heard) is not designed for huge numbers of people being visible, and in the same area at once. For another, when lots of 80’s has-beens start populating the cyberspace (sorry Mr Gibson), you know the place is starting to become unfashionable (like the classical section of your local music store.)

And now, to top it all, both Sun and IBM have held events in the digital game Second Life. Now we need to ask why are they there? It can only be because they think there is a viable market to advertise in. I don’t know about you, but generally all I’ve found in Second Life is a bunch of social misfits trying to get some online sex on the go. Anybody that seems intelligent are creating online courses on how to manipulate the environment, rather than actually teaching people USEFUL stuff. I’m sure Sun and IBM know what they’re doing, or are they just riding the wave of new users to the environment?

So what else is going to make you think, “well maybe first life is better than second?” Well mainly the fact you can meet people in real life that don’t trail endless resource sapping bubbles behind them, and you can browse a shop in the high street without being confronted by a goth (emo in americanism) asking you how long you’ve been a “second lifer.” Not that I have a huge problem with this, but it does kind of make you wonder what these people are doing in their spare time, if they have any.

So Second Life is Rubbish Life and you’d be mad to think that you can “make a go of it” on a bunch of pixels on a server.. This is not a William Gibson novel, and it’s not the American Dream. After-all it’s just a clumsy attempt at getting some cash, which if you invest in you will be disappointed IMO.