Second Life

Second Life is an Internet-based virtual environment, a virtual world, created in 2003 by American company Linden Research, Inc., more commonly known as Linden Lab. It became increasingly popular following extensive media coverage in late 2006 and early 2007. With the use of a free computer program called the Second Life Viewer, the virtual world is accessible to any person who has a broadband Internet connection and sufficient computer performance. A graphical representation of the self, an avatar, is used to participate in Second Life. Participants are commonly referred to as “residents.” Both the virtual environment and the avatars are rendered with three-dimensional graphics similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft. However, contrary to such games where most graphics ...