Second Life and Beyond

 What is Virtual World

 Second Life
◦ How Second Life Works
◦ Business in Second Life
◦ Research in Second Life
◦ Problem with Second Life
 Other Virtual Worlds
◦ OpenSimulator
◦ Wonderland
 Summary

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 “A virtual world is a computer-based simulated
environment intended for its users to inhabit and
interact via avatars.” - Wikipedia

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 Virtual world evolves from:
◦ Social Networks

◦ Online Games
 World of Warcraft: a very popular
massively multiplayer online role-
playing game (MMOG) that takes
place in a fantasy virtual world.

◦ Simulations

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 Besides World of Warcraft, there are also more
realistic virtual worlds, which do not focus on
gaming.

 These virtual worlds can be used for:

◦ Communication
◦ Business
◦ Education
◦ Social Networking

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 Second Life is the most popular non-gaming virtual
world right now.

 Statistics: (source)
◦ User-to-User transactions in 2009 totaled US$567 million in
2009, growth of 65% over 2008.
◦ The total amount of virtual currency in circulation reached
L$6.95 billion, growth of 23% over December 2008. (1$ ≈
270L$)
◦ Residents spent 481 million hours in Second Life in 2009, 21%
growth over 2008
◦ Monthly Repeat Logins reached an all-time high of 769,000 in
December 2009, 15% growth over December 2008

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 Users download the Second Life client to enter
the virtual world.

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 Client/Server Architecture Server@Linden Lab
◦ Server: Like web server, stores all
the information (avatar, object,
finance, land) about Second Life
and deals with all the requests.
All servers are hosted at Linden Internet
Lab

◦ Client: An open-source 3D
virtual world viewer that renders
the graphics to users.
Clients

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 All the objects and activities in Second Life are
created by its residents.

 Residents have different tools within Second Life:

◦ Communication tools
 Text Communication
 Chat (Public)
 Instant Messaging (Private)
 Voice Chat
 Using Gestures and Animations

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◦ Transportation tools
 Walk/Fly in a region
 Teleport to other regions

◦ Build tools
 3D Primitives Building
 Linden Scripting Language
 Texture, Sound and
Animation Import

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 Second Life currency: Linden Dollar (L$)

1 US$ ≈ 260 L$

 L$ can be used both on Web or in the virtual

world.

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 Business Opportunities
◦ Selling virtual goods (C2C,
B2C, B2B)
◦ Building communities
◦ Customer support
◦ Training & research
◦ Public relation
◦ Marketing

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 Despite the economic crisis around world, business
in Second Life ,including user-to-user transaction
(lower-left figure), and virtual store sales (lower-right
figure), has been growing steadily.

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 Real companies in Second Life

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 The burgeoning of Second Life has attracted
researchers from various fields. Interesting research
questions are raised in disciplines across business,
education and social sciences. (Messinger, Stroulia, et al.
2009)

◦ Business domain:
 Strategy: How can virtual worlds like Second Life support
themselves? By single up-front fee, periodic subscription fee,
advertising or virtual product sales?

 Marketing: How should an avatar agent’s appearance be designed?

 Organizational Issues: Can virtual workspace improve group

productivity?

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◦ Education domain:
 How can virtual worlds be used for education and distance
learning?

 What topics are particularly suitable for classes in virtual worlds?

 Will most Internet learning evolve to use virtual reality

technologies?

◦ Social sciences domain:

 Sociology: Do behaviors and attitudes learned in virtual worlds
affect behaviors and attitudes in the real world? How? In particular,
do virtual worlds influence attitudes toward violence, sexuality, and
conservatism?

 Psychology: What are people’s motivation within virtual worlds?

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 Though most research on virtual worlds are still at infancy, we
see several existing research that have addressed some of the
questions.

 Education
◦ Franceschi, Lee, et al. (2009) conducted experiments in three learning
environments:
 Traditional classrooms
 Text-based e-learning
 3D virtual world.
◦ The experiment results show that virtual classroom in Second Life is a
better learning environment than text-based e-learning.

◦ Lester and King (2009) did experiments to compare the average grades
between two classes of students, with one class taught face-to-face and
the other in Second Life. The findings show that face-to-face learning
results in a slightly higher average grades: 84/100 compared to 80/100.

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 Sociology & Psychology
◦ Yee (2006A, 2006B) studied the motivation of people playing
massive multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and
virtual worlds. Based on his study, user motivation consists of five
factors: achievement, relationship, immersion, escapism, and
manipulation.

◦ Yee and Bailenson (2007) used experiments to show the Proteus

effect, which states that individuals’ behavior conforms to their
digital self-representation independent of how others perceive
them.

◦ Yee, Bailenson, et al. (2007) and Friedman, Steed, et al. (2007)

studied the nonverbal communication (NVC) in social interaction
among Second Life residents. Both research shed light on how
social norms evolve from real world to virtual world.

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 During the past two years, Second Life did not gain its
popularity as expected (compared to Facebook and
Twitter). Some companies even began to close their virtual
companies in Second Life. We can see there are several
problems with Second Life, and all other virtual worlds:
◦ High system requirements – few personal computers can run
Second Life client smoothly.

◦ High learning curve – May be difficult for people new to 3D

environments. And the object creation techniques is extremely
difficult to manage.

◦ Little integration with Web – Though there are websites selling

virtual products, we see little application that utilize the power of
both Second Life and Web 2.0.

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 There are several open source projects that provide
people the chance to host their own virtual world.
Among them, two projects have gain some success:
◦ OpenSimulator (OpenSim) (http://opensimulator.org/): a C#
based 3D application server that emulates the protocols of
Second Life. With OpenSimulator users can build a small scale
Second Life-like virtual world.

◦ Wonderland (http://www.projectwonderland.com/): a Java

based virtual world server that is undergoing fastest
development. It supports more operation between virtual
world client and other programs running on users’ computer.
Users can drag “anything” from their computer to create virtual
objects in Wonderland.

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 Why having other virtual worlds?
◦ Scalability: While Second Life is a world-wide virtual world, sometimes
people may only need a small-scale virtual world, whose settings can be
freely adjusted per users’ request.

◦ Accessibility: These virtual worlds also allow data to be stored on local

servers. Hence there is no access problem for a virtual world deployed in
a local network, as many companies enforce strict network access
policies.

◦ Confidentiality: As 3D application server and databases are hosted

entirely on local machines, instead of on Linden Lab’s servers, there is no
risk of leaking confidential data when using these small virtual worlds.

◦ Cost-effective: The cost of setting up these open source virtual worlds

are far less than buying lands from Second Life. So these virtual worlds
are more favorable for education and research purposes.

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 Who is using OpenSim and Wonderland?
◦ IBM released Lotus Sametime 3D last year, which is a collaboration
product based on OpenSim. It targets at large organizations
needing integration with other Lotus products and corporate
LDAP directories. Current customers of Lotus Sametime 3D
includes Northeastern University, Northcentral Technical College,
and Raytheon.

◦ ReactionGrid provides OpenSim hosting and maintenance

services. It also created tools to facilitate region building for
users. Current customers of ReactionGrid includes Intel, Microsoft
and the American Cancer Society.

◦ The MediaGrid Immersive Education Initiative led by Boston

University is doing cutting-edge experiments in Wonderland for
learning purposes.

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Screenshot of OpenSimulator

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Screenshot of Wonderland

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 As of today, Second Life is the most popular and most commercialized
virtual world. It is most representative of the status quo of virtual
worlds.

 OpenSim has been widely adopted by companies to develop virtual

world-based communication and collaboration tools.

 Wonderland is more widely adopted for education purposes.

 It is expected that in near future, Second Life, OpenSim and

Wonderland regions will be interconnected, allowing avatars to teleport
freely among regions hosted under different technologies.
◦ This breakthrough will transform virtual worlds into a “Web”, where every company
or organization can host their own virtual world regions.

◦ Virtual world client can serve as a web browser to direct users surfing within the
“Web” of virtual worlds.

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 Franceschi, K., R. M. Lee, et al. (2009). "Engaging Group E-Learning in Virtual Worlds."
Journal of Management Information Systems 26(1): 73-100.
 Friedman, D., A. Steed, et al. (2007). Spatial social behavior in second life Intelligent virtual
agents 2007 Springer-Verlag
 Lester, P. M. and C. M. King (2009). "Analog vs. Digital Instruction and Learning: Teaching
Within First and Second Life Environments." Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication 14: 457-483.
 Messinger, P. R., E. Stroulia, et al. (2009). "Virtual world - past, present, and future: New
directions in social computing." Decision Support Systems 47: 204-228.
 Yee, N. (2006A). "The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of
Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments." PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual
Environments 15: 309-329.
 Yee, N. (2006B). "Motivations for Play in Online Games." CyberPsychology & Behavior 9(6).
 Yee, N. and Bailenson, J. N. (2007). "The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-
Representaion on Behavior." Human Communication Research 33: 271-290.
 Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., et al. (2007). "The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The
Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments." The Journal of
CyberPsychology and Behavior 10: 115-121.

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