I know I have been doing a lot of reposting of articles lately but there are a lot of good ones out there.

Second Life’s Facebook page posted a link to an excellent article recently posted in an e-Zine called “Good,” about the life cycle of Second Life, and that despite it’s detractors, Second Life is alive and well and thriving! It’s really nice to read some positive things about Second Life, instead of the usual articles decrying that SL is nothing but a den of iniquity and ruiner of RL marriages and relationships.

It also has some interesting information about SL. For instance, did you know that SL was inspired by the Metaverse in Neil Stephenson’s 1992 seminal sci-fi hit Snow Crash?

The article talks about SL’s rapid rise to fame: “From 2006 to 2009, optimism about this new space reached a fever pitch, with dedicated reporters, travel guides, and hundreds of businesses clamoring to get in on the excitement of a whole new universe within our own. Researchers flooded into this alternate world as well, examining all the ways one could use Second Life to, say, help Asperger’s patients develop their social skills in a specially tailored, therapeutic safe space.”

The article also refers to the notion that SL became a dystopian, dirty, and absurd world in a post-2009 crash as humans fled back to the predictable dynamism of the real world.

But then the article takes a hopeful turn. It states:

“Though that’s not quite the whole story. In truth, Second Life remains quite alive, clocking a million active users per month as of 2013 and up to 13,000 new users ever day. The site may actually have a larger, more stable population as of today than it did at its 2006-to-2008 peak of popularity and respectability. Yet we don’t hear about this continued vibrancy in Second Life, mainly because it’s no longer thought of as a space for general populations to enhance their lives. Instead it has generated a second life of its own as a uniquely attractive hub for globally dispersed subcultures to join together. These groups can create whole worlds that unite them, transcending role-playing and turning their ideologies into a comprehensive society.”

You can find the article in it’s entirety by clicking on this link: Second Life is Staying Alive.

And try getting that song out of your head after reading the title of the article. Excuse me for now; I’m going to dust off my Bee Gees album!

I remain respectfully yours,

~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media