248 Part II • Information Technology
Second Life and Business
Second Life, developed and operated by Linden Lab, is an online 3-D virtual world entirely built and
owned by its residents. Launched in 2003, Second Life now boasts about 650,000 active users. Users
create alter egos, called avatars, to represent themselves. These avatars, which can look like ordinary
people or very weird nonhuman beings, can walk, run, sit, fly, buy property, build houses, start businesses,
attend concerts, and buy and sell virtual products and services. All this sounds like escapist fun—and it
is—but why are real-world businesses such as IBM, Cisco, Nokia, and Dell big users of Second Life? How
do organizations such as the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago
use Second Life?
When Second Life first really took off, in 2005 through 2007, many businesses created buildings
in Second Life that could be visited by residents. These buildings showcased the products offered by the
sponsoring businesses—a new way of creating an awareness of these products and building some real-
world demand. These companies believed that some of the design, marketing, and sales challenges in
the real world could be solved by the virtual world. For the most part that hasn’t happened, although
some of the business buildings remain open for Second Lifers to visit. It seems that most Second Lifers
didn’t want to design and shop for real-world products.
What are the popular activities in Second Life? There are many, including shopping—but for
virtual clothing, furniture, and buildings. Sightseeing is very popular, and there are several Second Life
travel blogs to suggest places to see and things to do. Frequent live music concerts are held in Second
Life, and there are dance clubs where your avatar can move to DJs or live music. Role playing in impro-
vised scenes is popular; sometimes the role playing occurs in role play communities based on ancient
Rome, historic Deadwood, South Dakota, or a vampires-and-monsters-themed city. Simulated surfing
and sailing are popular, and, of course, so is cybersex. With all these activities, what role remains in
Second Life for real-world businesses and organizations?
Second Life has proved to be very useful to businesses for collaborationandtraining.IBM, for
instance, has more than 50 islands (an island is a leased server) in Second Life, where it holds internal
meetings and connects with its corporate users. Second Life is used by 1,400 organizations for training,
meetings, conferences, and team building. These organizations say that the virtual world gives them
richer collaboration than teleconference calls or videoconferencing. The number of organizations using
Second Life would undoubtedly be even greater except for a limitation of Second Life: It runs on Linden
Lab’s servers, resulting in potential problems in terms of user control and security. This limitation has
been removed with the recent launch of Second Life Enterprise, a $55,000 hardware appliance that
businesses can install in their own data centers, enabling them to run Second Life on their own
networks behind the company firewall.
Nonbusiness organizations are also finding a place in Second Life. The U.S. Air Force has created
MyBase in Second Life for recruiting, training, education, and operations. MyBase is open to the public,
and users can tour the base, learn about the Air Force, take a virtual flight in a P-51 Mustang, and sign
up for online conferences. Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital hired a contractor to build a Second
Life simulation of its campus and building and then used Second Life to conduct a disaster preparedness
exercise to show employees how to evacuate patients in an emergency. A number of peer-support
groups have been created in Second Life, and one of the biggest of these is Virtual Ability, which serves
a community of about 400 people with a variety of real-life disabilities. Members of Virtual Ability,
through their Second Life avatars, provide emotional support for others in the group as well as share
practical advice for real-world problems. Second Life provides a social outlet for many disabled people,
and it gives housebound people the opportunity to travel. Second Life is playing a major role for many
businesses and other organizations, although that role is not the same as was originally envisioned.
[Based on LaPlante, 2007; and Wagner, 2008a, 2008b, 2009a, 2009b, and 2009c]The development of VR is in its infancy, and it
will be a long time before anything remotely approaching
the Enterprise’s holodeck is possible. Nevertheless,
many vendors are developing VR hardware and software,
and numerous valuable VR applications are beginning
to appear.