Customer Reviews

Second Life: a documentary

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I've only been using Second Life for about 10 days now, and I'm kind of desperate for information. This is a 54-minute DVD consisting entirely of scenes shot in Second Life, mostly interviews with various Avatars voiced by their Real Life operators. The video emphasizes the idea of Second Life as a platform rather than a game, similar in some ways to Facebook or MySpace (or even the early days of AOL) but with a real-time three-dimensional collaborative environment.

Quite a bit of time is devoted to such topics as real world business applications of Second Life, "in-game" businesses, the importance of social networking and in particular marriages, and the use of real life music in Second Life.

As a neophyte user I was surprised to see so little mention of the use of foreign languages in Second Life. SL is to me, mostly a German and Italian language 3D chat room; I've actually met very few people in Second Life who speak English at least as their mother tongue. There is also relatively little emphasis in the video on the construction of simulations of real life environments such as can be found in Munich SL (although Dublin SL is mentioned).

Some of the interviews come across as a little sophomoric, as an Avatar opines about the early days of the internet while wearing samurai swords and sunglasses. On the other hand, there is thankfully no mention whatsoever of the cybersex in Second Life, which I personally don't find at all appealing.

I've had trouble explaining what Second Life is to people even while showing it to them. I will definitely pass this video on to friends to get the word out. If you've heard about Second Life and want to know more about what it is, but don't want to take the time to log on and create an avatar and spend the weekend teleporting all over the "metaverse" it's well worth the $10 to buy this disc.