Second Life: After The Hype

The BBC asks What Happened To Second Life? and answers ‘not much’. It’s a valid question but it’s missing the point to focus on the commercial side of Second Life, as this article does. It’s more useful to ask what impact Second Life has had on a wide range of other issues. A quick scan of sites like KZero will show you that the interest and investment in other virtual worlds continues to grow, and concentrating on the relative failure of Second Life to attract and maintain business investment inworld is not its lasting legacy.

Second Life was truly innovative and will be remembered as such. It has a loyal user base, and Linden Lab is still tweaking and experimenting, as should be expected from a company that really kickstarted the whole social virtual worlds phenomenon. It might not be a world-beater in its current form but its influence has been significant,  not least in showing glimpses of what might be possible for avatar-mediated online environments. It will continue to be a fruitful laboratory for social research and practice and although Linden will always be looking at their bottom line – and may decide to ‘move on’ at some point – there is more of value to Second Life than its success or failure as a business model.