Second Life

Virtual worlds and games are an area where I have no experiences at all. I know that the library of Turku University of Applied Sciences has its own Second Life world but I’ve never used it and don’t even know much about it.

I don’t quite understand why Second Life is needed because there are all kind of chats and discussion groups that could be used to same kind of purposes. Maybe SL makes work and meetings feel more casual and fun. To me Second Life looks quite like the computer game called the Sims but it is used for different purposes. I could try it if for example a company that I’m working in uses it but otherwise I’m not really interested about it.

I looked for companies that use Second Life to get more information about it and I found a Business Insider’s article from about a year ago where it was said that Second Life was quite a hit over five years ago. According to the article, many companies like Amazon had virtual stores in Second Life and the users could for example buy stuff for their avatar. Universities also used Second Life to have classes in there. This came as a total surprise for me. I guess that SL never had the same kind of popularity in Finland that it had for example in USA and that’s why I don’t recall hearing about it back then. Especially after reading the article I’m pretty sure it won’t reach same kind of popularity anymore even though some people and organisations still use it.

- Jenna