Второй Жизнь: Виртуальный мир и сообщество

Online virtual world
the virtual community

Second Life is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi user online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Francisco–based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003, it saw rapid growth for some years and in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017 the active user count had declined to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, Second Life is similar to massively multiplayer online role playing games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective." The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own client software or via alternative third party viewers. Second Life users, also called 'residents', create virtual representations of themselves, called avatars, and are able to interact with places, objects and other avatars. They can explore the world (known as the grid), meet other residents, socialize, participate in both individual and group activities, build, create, shop, and trade virtual property and services with one another. The platform principally features 3D based user generated content. Second Life also has its own virtual currency, the Linden Dollar (L$), which is exchangeable with real world currency. Second Life is intended for people ages 16 and over, with the exception of 13–15 year old users, who are restricted to the Second Life region of a sponsoring institution (e. g., a school).

Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab in 1999 with the intention of developing computer hardware to allow people to become immersed in a virtual world. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of the hardware, known as "The Rig", which in prototype form was seen as a clunky steel contraption with computer monitors worn on shoulders. That vision changed into the software application Linden World, in which people participated in task based games and socializing in a three dimensional online environment. That effort eventually transformed into the better known, user centered Second Life. Although he was familiar with the metaverse of Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, Rosedale has said that his vision of virtual worlds predates that book, and that he conducted early virtual world experiments during his college years at the University of California, San Diego, where he studied physics. Second Life began to receive significant media attention in 2005 and 2006, including a cover story in BusinessWeek magazine featuring the virtual world and Second Life avatar Anshe Chung. By that time, Anshe Chung had become Second Lifes poster child and symbol for the economic opportunities that the virtual world offers to its residents. At the same time, the service saw a period of exponential growth of its user base. One of the principal developers, Cory Ondrejka, was forced to resign as chief technology officer in December 2007, with Rosedale citing irreconcilable differences in the way the company was run. Nevertheless, the platform continued to grow rapidly, and by January 2008, residents spent a total of 28,274,505 hours "inworld" and on average 38,000 residents were logged in at any moment. The maximum concurrency (number of avatars inworld) recorded was set at 88,200 in the first quarter of 2009. Second Life was honored at the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the development of online sites with user generated content in 2008, adding to the media attention. Rosedale accepted the award, although he had announced plans to step down from his position as Linden Lab CEO and to become chairman of Linden Lab's board of directors instead in March 2008 Rosedale announced Mark Kingdon as the new CEO effective May 15, 2008. In 2010, Kingdon was replaced by Rosedale, who took over as interim CEO. After four months, Rosedale abruptly stepped down from the Interim CEO position. It was announced in October 2010 that Bob Komin, Linden Lab's chief financial officer and chief operating officer, would take over the CEO job for the immediate future. With the platform's failure to continue its high rate of growth after 2009, Linden Lab announced layoffs of 30% of its workforce in 2010. Some 21.3 million accounts were registered by this point, although the company did not make public any statistics regarding actual long term consistent usage and numbers of dormant accounts. Despite speculation as to the actual size of the user base, Second Life continued as a commercial success. In 2015, Second Life users cashed out approximately $60,000,000 (60 million US dollars) and Second Life had an estimated GDP of $500,000,000 (500 million US dollars), higher than some small countries. Recognizing improvements in computing power and particularly in computer graphics, Linden Lab began work on a successor to Second Life, a VR experience called Sansar, launching a public beta in July 2017. Uptake was low and Linden Lab halted development in 2020 to focus their attention fully on Second Life. The rights to Sansar's assets were sold to Wookey Search Technologies, who are expected to continue development on the title without Linden Lab. Second Life, the usage of which peaked in the first decade of the 21st century, has been cited as the first example of the metaverse, a concept which has been taken up by other major corporations such as Facebook in 2021. As a notable precursor (which retains a small and loyal following), it provides several examples of virtual reality social issues and lessons learned.

There is no charge for creating a Second Life account or for making use of the world for any period of time. Linden Lab reserves the right to charge for the creation of large numbers of multiple accounts for a single person (5 per household, 2 per 24 hours) but at present does not do so. A Premium membership (US$11.99 monthly, US$32.97 quarterly, or US$99 annually) extends access to an increased level of technical support, and also pays an automatic stipend of L$300/week into the member's avatar account, and after 45 days that resident will receive a L$700 bonus, making it L$1,000 for that week. This amount has decreased since the original stipend of L$500, which is still paid to older accounts. Certain accounts created during an earlier period may receive L$400. This stipend, if changed into USD, means that the actual cost for the benefit of extended tech support for an annual payment of US$72 is only about US$14, depending on the currency exchange rates. However, the vast majority of casual users of Second Life do not upgrade beyond the free "basic" account. Avatars may take any form users choose (human, animal, vegetable, mineral, or a combination thereof) or residents may choose to resemble themselves as they are in real life. They may choose even more abstract forms, given that almost every aspect of an avatar is fully customizable. Second Life culture consists of many activities and behaviors that are also present in real life. A single resident account may have only one avatar at a time, although the appearance of this avatar can change between as many different forms as the Resident wishes. Avatar forms, like almost everything else in Second Life, can be either created by the user, or bought pre made. A single person may also have multiple accounts, and thus appear to be multiple Residents (a person's multiple accounts are referred to as alts). Avatars can travel via walking, running, vehicular access, flying, or teleportation. Because Second Life is such a vast virtual world, teleportation is used when avatars wish to travel instantly and efficiently. Once they reach their destination, they may travel in more conventional means at various speeds. Avatars can communicate via local chat, group chat, global instant messaging (known as IM), and voice (public, private and group). Chatting is used for localized public conversations between two or more avatars, and is visible to any avatar within a given distance. IMs are used for private conversations, either between two avatars, or among the members of a group, or even between objects and avatars. Unlike chatting, IM communication does not depend on the participants being within a certain distance of each other. As of version 1.18.1.2 (2007 Aug 02), voice chat, both local and IM, was also available. Instant messages may optionally be sent to a Resident's email when the Resident is logged off, although message length is limited to 4096 bytes. Identities in Second Life can relate to the users' personality or creating their own character. It is based on their decisions on how to express themselves. Most avatars are human, but they can choose to be vampires or animals. Sometimes, what they choose does not relate to their offline selves. In Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, anthropologist Tom Boellstorff notes that the interface of Second Life is designed with the purpose of disconnecting a player's virtual identity from their physical identity in mind. However, Linden Lab changed their terms of service in August 2013 to be able to use user generated content for any purpose. The new terms of service prevent users from using textures from third party texture services, as some of them pointed out explicitly.

Second Life has an internal economy and closed loop virtual token called the "Linden dollar (L$)". L$ can be used to buy, sell, rent or trade land or goods and services with other users. The "Linden Dollar" is a closed loop virtual token for use only within the Second Life platform. Linden Dollars have no monetary value and are not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab. A resident with a surplus of Linden Dollars earned via a Second Life business or experiential play can request to refund their Linden Dollar surplus to PayPal. Linden Lab reports that the Second Life economy generated US$3,596,674 in economic activity during the month of September 2005, and in September 2006 Second Life was reported to have a GDP of $64 million. In 2009, the total size of the Second Life economy grew 65% to US$567 million, about 25% of the entire U. S. virtual goods market. Gross resident earnings are US$55 million in 2009 – 11% growth over 2008. In 2013, Linden Lab released an info graphic that showed that over 10 years $3.2 billion in transactions for virtual goods had exchanged between Second Life residents, with an average of 1.2 million daily transactions. There is a high level of entrepreneurial activity in Second Life. Residents of Second Life are able to create virtual objects and other content. Second Life is unique in that users retain all the rights to their content which means they can use Second Life to distribute and sell their creations, with 2.1 million items listed on its online marketplace. Major tech corporations have tried to use Second Life to market products or services to Second Lifes tech savvy audience. IBM, for example, purchased 12 islands within Second Life for virtual training and simulations of key business processes, but has since moved on to other platforms due to maintenance costs. Others, like musicians, podcasters, and news organizations (including CNET, Reuters, NPR's The Infinite Mind, and the BBC), have all had a presence within Second Life. Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, and works of art. Services include business management, entertainment, and custom content creation (which can be broken up into the following six categories: building, texturing, scripting, animating, art direction, and the position of producer/project funder). L$ can be purchased using US dollars and other local currencies on the LindeX exchange provided by Linden Lab. Customer USD wallets obtained from Linden Dollar sales on the Lindex are most commonly used to pay Second Lifes own subscription and tier fees; only a relatively small number of users earn enough profit to request a refund to PayPal. According to figures published by Linden Lab, about 64,000 users made a profit in Second Life in February 2009, of whom 38,524 made less than US$10, while 233 made more than US$5000. Profits are derived from selling virtual goods, renting land, and a broad range of services.

Second Life comprises the viewer (also known as the client) executing on the user's personal computer, and several thousand servers operated by Linden Lab.

Linden Lab provides official viewers for the operating systems Windows, macOS, and most distributions of Linux where the more known ChromeOS has been excluded so far. The viewer renders 3D graphics using OpenGL technology. The viewer source code was released under the GPL in 2007 and moved to the LGPL in 2010. There are now several mature third party viewer projects, the most popular being Firestorm, that contain features not available in the Linden Lab 'Official' client, target other platforms or cater to specialist & accessibility needs. The main focus of third party development is exploring new ideas and working with Linden Lab to deliver new functionality. An independent project, libopenmetaverse, offers a function library for interacting with Second Life servers. libopenmetaverse has been used to create non graphic third party viewers. There are several Alternate Viewers published by Linden Lab used for software testing by volunteers for early access to upcoming projects. Some of these clients only function on the "beta grid" consisting of a limited number of regions running various releases of unstable test server code.

Each full region (an area of 256×256 meters) in the Second Life "grid" runs on a single dedicated core of a multi core server. Homestead regions share 3 regions per core and Openspace Regions share 4 regions per core, running proprietary software on Debian Linux. These servers run scripts in the region, as well as providing communication between avatars and objects present in the region. Every item in the Second Life universe is referred to as an asset. This includes the shapes of basic 3D polygon objects formally known as Primitive Mesh (commonly known as primitives or prims for short), the digital images referred to as textures that decorate primitives, digitized audio clips, avatar shape and appearance, avatar skin textures, LSL scripts, information written on notecards, and so on. Each asset is referenced with a universally unique identifier or UUID. Assets are stored on Isilon Systems storage clusters, comprising all data that has ever been created by anyone who has been in the Second Life world. Infrequently used assets are offloaded to S3 bulk storage. as of 2007, the total storage was estimated to consume 100 terabytes of server capacity. The asset servers function independently of the region simulators, though the region simulators act as a proxy for the client, request object data from the asset servers when a new object loads into the simulator. Region simulators areas are commonly known as sims by residents. Each server instance runs a physics simulation to manage the collisions and interactions of all objects in that region. Objects can be nonphysical and non moving, or actively physical and movable. Complex shapes may be linked together in groups of up to 256 separate primitives. Additionally, each player's avatar is treated as a physical object so that it may interact with physical objects in the world. as of 2014, Second Life simulators use the Havok 2011.2 physics engine for all in world dynamics. This engine is capable of simulating thousands of physical objects at once. Linden Lab pursues the use of open standards technologies, and uses free and open source software such as Apache, MySQL, Squid and Linux. The plan is to move everything to open standards by standardizing the Second Life protocol. Cory Ondrejka, former CTO of Second Life, stated in 2006 that a while after everything has been standardized, both the client and the server will be released as free and open source software. In January 2021, Linden Lab completed the migration of all of its services and databases to AWS servers.

In January 2007, OpenSimulator was founded as an open source simulator project. The aim of this project is to develop a full open source server software for Second Life clients. OpenSIM is BSD Licensed and it is written in C# and can run under Mono environment. From 2008, alternative grids began to emerge and many of these allow cross visits from other grids through the hypergrid protocol using OpenSimulator.

Second Life residents express themselves creatively through virtual world adaptations of art exhibits, live music, live theater and machinima, as well as other art forms.

A wide variety of recreational activities, both competitive and non competitive, take place on the Second Life Grid, including both traditional sports and video game–like scenarios.

Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities. Since 2008, the University of San Martin de Porres of Peru has been developing Second Life prototypes of Peruvian archeological buildings, and training teachers for this new paradigm of education. The West Virginia University (WVU) Department of Special Education has used Second Life widely in education, and it provided teaching certification and certificates of degree in seven different distance education programs. WVU started a pilot program in the college's computer lab in spring 2011.

The Maldives was the first country to open an embassy in Second Life. The Maldives' embassy is located on Second Life's "Diplomacy Island", where visitors will be able to talk face to face with a computer generated ambassador about visas, trade and other issues. "Diplomacy Island" also hosts Diplomatic Museum and Diplomatic Academy. The Island is established by DiploFoundation as part of the Virtual Diplomacy Project. In May 2007, Sweden became the second country to open an embassy in Second Life. Run by the Swedish Institute, the embassy serves to promote Sweden's image and culture, rather than providing any real or virtual services. The Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, stated on his blog that he hoped he would get an invitation to the grand opening. In September 2007, Publicis Group announced the project of creating a Serbia island as a part of a project Serbia Under Construction. The project is officially supported by Ministry of Diaspora of Serbian Government. It was stated that the island will feature the Nikola Tesla Museum, the Guča Trumpet Festival and the Exit Festival. It was also planned on opening a virtual info terminals of Ministry of Diaspora. On Tuesday, December 4, 2007, Estonia became the third country to open an embassy in Second Life. In September 2007, Colombia and Serbia opened embassies. As of 2008, North Macedonia and the Philippines have opened embassies in the "Diplomatic Island" of Second Life. In 2008, Albania opened an embassy in the Nova Bay location. SL Israel was inaugurated in January 2008 in an effort to showcase Israel to a global audience, though without any connection to official Israeli diplomatic channels. In 2008, Malta opened an embassy on Second Life.

Religious organizations have also begun to open virtual meeting places within Second Life. In early 2007, LifeChurch. tv, a Christian church headquartered in Edmond, Oklahoma, and with eleven campuses in the US, created "Experience Island" and opened its twelfth campus in Second Life. In July 2007, an Anglican cathedral was established in Second Life; Mark Brown, the head of the group that built the cathedral, noted that there is "an interest in what I call depth, and a moving away from light, fluffy Christianity". The First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Second Life was established in 2006. Services have been held regularly, making the FUUCSL Congregation one of the longest running active congregations in Second Life. The Egyptian owned news website Islam Online has purchased land in Second Life to allow Muslims and non Muslims alike to perform the ritual of Hajj in virtual reality form, obtaining experience before actually making the pilgrimage to Mecca in person. Second Life also offers several groups that cater to the needs and interests of humanists, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers. One of the most active groups is SL Humanism which has been holding weekly discussion meetings inside Second Life every Sunday since 2006.

Romantic relationships are common in Second Life, including some couples who have married online. The social engagement offered by the online environment helps those who might be socially isolated. In addition, sex is often encountered. However, to access the adult sections requires age verification. There are also large BDSM and Gorean communities. Second Life relationships have been taken from virtual online relationships into personal, real world relationships. Booperkit Moseley and Shukran Fahid were possibly the first couple to meet in Second Life and then marry in real life. Booperkit travelled to the United States to meet Shukran and he returned to England with her after one week. They married in 2006, had twin boys in 2009, and are still married. Some couples meet online, form friendships, and eventually move to finding one another in the real world. Some even have their weddings on Second Life, as well as in a real world setting. Relationships in virtual worlds have an added dimension compared to other social media, because avatars give a feeling of proximity making the voyeur experience more intense than simply a textual encounter. The complexities of those encounters depend on the engagement levels of the people behind the avatars, whether they are engaging disassociatively (entertainment only), immersively (as if the avatar was them), or augmentatively (meaning they engage for a real life purpose).

Second Life is used for scientific research, collaboration, and data visualization. Examples include SciLands, American Chemical Society's ACS Island, Genome, Virginia Tech's SLATE, and Nature Publishing Group's Elucian Islands Village.

Second Life can be a real time, immersive social space for people including those with physical or mental disabilities that impair their lives, who often find comfort and security interacting through anonymous avatars. (Some academics believe using Second Life might even help improve motor ability for people with Parkinson's disease.). An example of how Second Life has been used by disabled people is Wheelies, the widely publicised disability themed virtual nightclub founded by Simon Stevens.

Shoutcast and Icecast radio stations can be streamed into a land parcel in Second Life. The streaming codec is MP3, as AAC and Vorbis are not currently supported. There are internet radio providers that offer these services or select from a list. At the time of this writing, media on a prim (MOAP) is not a reliable enough way of displaying media and such, sites listed work best with Parcel Media or Parcel Audio.

Second Life gives companies the option to create virtual workplaces to allow employees to virtually meet, hold events, practice any kind of corporate communications, conduct training sessions in 3D immersive virtual learning environment, simulate business processes, and prototype new products. In 2020, CEO of Second Life Ebbe Altberg announced a microsite for Second Life to serve as a space for digital meetings to take place amidst global social distancing, self isolation, and quarantine orders during the COVID 19 pandemic.

In 2007 director David Fincher worked with screenwriter Peter Straughan to make a Second Life movie based on Tim Guest's novel "Second Lives". The movie was rumored to feature Sacha Baron Cohen as protagonist Plastic Duck, a zany Second Life resident who drove founder Philip Rosedale bonkers.

Linden Lab has twice, in 2007 and 2010, banned a California educational institution, Woodbury University, from having a representation within Second Life. On April 20, 2010, four simulators belonging to the university were deleted and the accounts of several students and professors terminated, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Edward Clift, dean of the School of Media, Culture and Design at Woodbury University, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that their campus "was a living, breathing campus in Second Life", including educational spaces designed mostly by students, such as a mock representation of the former Soviet Union and a replica of the Berlin Wall. According to Clift, the virtual campus did not "conform to what Linden Lab wanted a campus to be". The article in The Chronicle of Higher Education concluded with: "Meanwhile, many people in Second Life expressed on blogs that they were glad to see the virtual campus go, arguing that it had been a haven for troublemakers in the virtual world." The newspaper, which was known as The Second Life Herald from 2004 to 2009, was later edited by the Internet pioneer Mark P. McCahill. According to scholars Constantinescu and Decu, The Alphaville Herald was the first "virtual free press," pioneering mass communication in virtual worlds.

In January 2007, a "virtual riot" erupted between members of the French National Front (FN) who had established a virtual HQ on Second Life, and "anti racism" activists, including Second Life Left Unity, a socialist and anti capitalist user group. Since then, several small Internet based organizations have claimed some responsibility for instigating the riots.

Corporate marketers, especially during the height of Second Life in the cultural zeitgeist of 2005–2010, have been accused of being overly credulous of the actual reach and influence of Second Life. Journalists have theorized this might be partially due to blithely accepting total account statistics rather than harder to discern active player counts. Reasons for account "inflation" can include in world systems which encourage the creation of bogus extra accounts such as "traffic bots" which simply remain stationary in a store, causing the system to rank the store as popular because there are people there, as well as simply idle and long inactive accounts. One article in Wired featured a marketer for Coca Cola who found Second Life to be essentially deserted when personally inspecting it, yet still funded a marketing campaign there anyway from fear of missing out.

Second Life has been attacked several times by groups of residents abusing the creation tools to create objects that harass other users or damage the system. This included grey goo objects which infinitely reproduce, eventually overwhelming the servers; orbiters which throw an avatar so far upwards they cannot get back down in a reasonable timeframe without teleporting; cages which surround avatars, preventing them from moving, and similar tools. Although combat between users is sanctioned in certain areas of the world, these objects have been used to cause disruption in all areas. Attacks on the grid itself, such as Grey Goo, are strictly forbidden anywhere on the grid. It was possible to perpetrate denial of service attacks (DoS) on other users simply by scripting objects that spew screen filling characters from anywhere on the grid to another avatar's location, thereby disabling a clear view to the virtual world. Bugs in the client and server software were also exploited by griefers to kick users, crash servers, and revert content before being patched out.