I Have Enough Trouble In My First Life, Why Do I Need a Second?

I've been hearing and reading stories about Second Life and all the money people were making there for several years now, but I didn't have much experience with it personally till earlier this semester, when I had to open a Second Life account for another class. My first reaction was surprise at how cheesy the whole thing looked--I don't know what I expected, but it all had a flat and tinny quality, as if everything was made of cut-up electronic paper. Chatting with strangers has never really been my thing, even in my original life, so I wasn't that interested in striking up conversations. I spent a lot of time finding stuff to put on my avatar--since I didn't have any money, it all had to be free. Luckily, there is a lot of free stuff in Second Life, but like real life, a lot of it is odds and ends and even if your avatar ends up looking unique, it looks kind of sad, too.

Since my initial experience, I've run into a few people who have Second Life businesses, mostly selling things for people to put in their houses. Although I think it's kind of interesting that you can make money in a virtual world, it doesn't seem to me to be a whole lot easier than making money in the real world. You still have to come up with a good or service that people want to buy, and it's going to take a certain investment of time and energy to learn the social and technical aspects of the world you're dealing with to get to the point where you can use that knowledge to your advantage. In that sense, there's really nothing "virtual" about Second Life at all--it's just an extension of the larger Internet. What's the difference between opening a SL "gallery" and posting samples of your work on a more conventional social networking site? I'm not sure, except that it's presented in a slightly different context.

As they're currently configured, it's hard for me to see virtual chatrooms like Second Life appealing to more than a niche audience, namely people who it gratifying to spend a lot of time making doll-like representations of themselves, which they can trot around computer landscapes. Obviously, there are a lot of people out there who at least try it, but I've got to wonder how many of those who register for Second Life actually end up spending significant time on it. For the experience to really catch on, it seems to me like it will have to become more immersive. If people feel like they're actually IN a virtual environment, instead of just moving an avatar around one, they will find it far more compelling. That's the way I feel anyhow, but given there are thousands of Chinese employed full-time manufacturing Second Life tchotchkes, I'm probably wrong.