Thing 8: Second Life

I watched all three of the videos listed, and I read the article by Stephen Abrams, which in turn linked to an hour long slide show from a presentation done in April 07 about SL, and I listened to that whole thing too, which was very similar to your presentation, Danielle. Its at http://sirsidynixinstitute.com/seminar_page.php?sid=76.

I was very favorably impressed to learn that you get to keep your intellectual property rights to anything you create in SL, which I guess I knew but it helped to be reminded. I think that bodes very well for its future health and growth. It was also interesting to hear it compared to an operating system rather than a game. Its all in what you use it for, it is intrinsically neutral in terms of purpose. I agree that it is like early stages of the web right now, and that as the technology gets better (like adding real time voice in world which the conference said was in beta) it will really become more apparent what this can be used for. Already I see the educational benefits of being able to live in ancient Rome or walk through the Old Globe Theater. Once you can access the web live from within SL and you have real voice then I think library reference will really blossom there, since currently our reference is so web dependent. Anything that encourages more creativity and nonlinear thinking is a good thing.