What's the Deal with Second Life?

Second Life is growing. The online virtual world that mimics the real world (only everything is over the Internet) is continuing to grow in popularity. People can earn money, build things, have a business and make friends all like in real life. So, the question remains why anyone would find this of any interest, and why a world based on reality would continue to grow in popularity.

Second Life, first and foremost, is not really a game. Some people might say it is simply because everything is confined to the computer, but the fact that participants are going about doing normal life activities online makes this something more than just a game where the object is to either live or die.

In fact, Second Life, because it is more like reality, seems similar to an escape from reality than it is just a game where players kill time entertaining themselves.

While most people would consider the virtual world to be something for mainly the young, the fact that organizations and other entities associated with adults are becoming more intertwined in Second Life, says something about this online world than any game like World of Warcraft or Starcraft possibly could. In fact, it may spell a growing clout for Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life and for the future of the online world in general.

Everyone from some university professors to large corporations are doing some sort of activity on Second Life. Some university classes are taught in Second Life while some companies actually conduct business meetings in the virtual world.

The federal government even got in on the action by hiring someone to create a Congress in Second Life so that Second Lifers could be informed of current policy occuring on capitol hill (whether this will do anything to increase the popularity of politics in this country among the young, remains to be seen). The fact that the government hired a third party to create a Second Life for Congress in the virtual world in many ways defeats the purpose of Second Life and probably had some cost to pay for whomever created the Congressional profile, but that is the government for you.