"…an excellent job of talking through the history of second life…" (Trusted Reviews, November 2006)

This exclusive guide offers a wealth of tips, analysis, and information about living in Second Life, the rich, multi-layered 3D virtual world inhabited by nearly a million residents. You'll find out everything from how Second Life began and where it's going to the truth about earning a real-world income and what's needed to enjoy the metaverse's vices and virtues.

Authored by Second Life experts and featuring contributions from Linden Lab employees and Second Life residents the world over, this official guide is the perfect companion for anyone who wants to create his or her own reality in Second Life. The book includes:

• Avatar appearance advice: Customize your look with ease.
• Places to go: Take a grand tour of interesting Second Life locales.
• Things to do: Check out some of Second Life's resident-created in-world events.
• People to meet: Get a taste of Second Life's diverse social scene.
• Building info: Learn how you can create everything from sandals to spaceships.
• Scripting info: Make your projects move, talk, spin around, and more—learn how to script in Second Life from the creator of the Linden Scripting Language himself.
• Economic info: See how you can get the job of your dreams and turn L$ into US$.

Second Life: The Official Guide is perfect for helping you enjoy the world's geography, economy, history, social etiquette, and the range of behaviors and interactions possible.

• Experience Second Life's rich and varied social scene
• Get a tour of Second Life's fantastic places
• Master the skills that let you create anything you can imagine

On the CD
The CD features textures, avatar templates, Avimator animation software, more than a hundred sample animations, and a host of resources to help Second Life builders, scripters, and animators. The CD also features videos created in Second Life and includes a code to?give readers?access to?exclusive in-world content.

Wagner James Au writes New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com) and covers the culture and business of high technology and gaming for GigaOM.com, Kotaku.com, Salon.com, and Wired. He’s also written for the Los Angeles Times, Lingua Franca, Smart Business, and Game Developer, among other publications and websites, primarily on game culture and the game industry, along with politics, fi lm, and pop culture. He’s also a screenwriter (his script Future Tense was optioned by Canal Plus in 2001), and as a game developer, wrote for Electronics Arts’ groundbreaking conspiracy thriller Majestic, and was a designer on America’s Army: Soldiers. His work as the embedded journalist for Second Life has been featured in the BBC, the Washington Post, NPR’s All Things Considered, CNN International, MSNBC, Wired magazine, News.com, New Scientist, Popular Science, and the San Jose Mercury News, among many other publications. He’s also a consultant for businesses and nonprofi ts developing a presence in Second Life and is a part-time coordinator/promoter for Creative Commons’ efforts in Second Life. He’s developing his work in Second Life into an upcoming book of his own. You can contact him at wjamesau@well.com. James wrote Chapters 11 and 12.

Mark Wallace is the editor of 3pointD.com, a widely read blog covering virtual worlds and other 3D online technologies. His writing on virtual worlds, video games, and other topics has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, GQ, and many other publications. He has written regularly on online games for The Escapist (www.escapistmagazine.com), and since January 2005 has run the Second Life Herald (www.secondlifeherald.com), a popular online newspaper covering virtual worlds. With Herald founder Peter Ludlow, he is coauthor of the forthcoming Only a Game: A Cyberspace Murder on the Bleeding Edge between Real and Online Worlds. He played his fi rst video game, the text-based game Adventure, in 1978 on aPDP-11. He lives in Brooklyn. Mark wrote Chapters 3 and 13.

Catherine Winters is one of the longest-tenured residents still active within the Second Life community. In 2003, she cofounded the LSL Wiki, the collaborative Second Life programming site that has grown to become the defi nitive reference manual for LSL scripting. A prolifi c scripter and content creator within Second Life, Catherine is one of the few SL residents to have made Second Life her primary source of real-world income. In her fi rst life, Catherine lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She enjoys cycling and downhill skiing, as well as curling up with a good book. Her personal web log can be found at www.CatherineOmega.com. Catherine authored Chapter 7.

Cory Ondrejka: Cory Ondrejka is chief technical offi cer at Linden Lab. He leads the Second Life development team in creating and leveraging such technologies as distributed physical simulation, 3D streaming, and real-time, in-world editors. He also spearheaded the decision to allow users to retain IP rights to their creations, helped craft Linden’s virtual real-estate policy, and created the Linden Scripting Language. Cory coauthored Chapter 8.

Ben Batstone-Cunningham is a Linden Lab programmer and scripting expert. On a brisk morning in February 2002, while cutting a Quantum Physics class, Ben read in the paper about a virtual world where anything was possible. He signed up for the alpha test of what was then called LindenWorld and quickly became addicted. Several months later, having become profi cient with the tools, he was invited to work for Linden Lab in creating the freshly renamed Second Life. Several years later, he is still happily addicted, and still creating scripts for Linden Lab—including example content for residents to learn from. Ben coauthored Chapter 8.