Second Life

3DEmbodiment offers a variety of services for the construction of virtual world islands, classrooms, conference rooms, museums, educational simulations and for helping businesses grow in Second Life.

Second Life is a 3D virtual world on the Internet. It was created in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Labs, which was founded by Philip Rosedale -- formerly CTO of the Web-streaming company RealNetworks. Early financial backers included Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development.

Second Life users interact in-world by creating avatars and using text chat, IM or voice to communicate. Basic membership in Second Life is free. But if a person or business wants to buy or sell land, or buy and sell goods, there is a monthly fee.

3DEmbodiment can help customers design and landscape islands, build objects such as cars, boats, buildings, stores and any object imaginable. These objects can be programmed to behave in various ways. For example, airplanes can be scripted to fly passengers around an island. Classrooms or conference rooms can have avatars from anywhere on the planet and live video can be streamed into meetings.

The Second Life in Education wiki http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses gives hundreds of examples of excellent educational uses of Second Life.

Second Life has its own functional economy where people can work, get paid and spend a type of money known as Linden dollars, which can be exchanged for U.S. dollars. Items for sale in Second Life range from clothing to buildings to properties and islands. Some people make their full-time living by creating and selling objects or services within Second Life.

Businesses are using Second Life for: Recruiting, interviewing, marketing, promotion, advertising, video conferencing, training simulations, architecture, education, graphic design services, making movies and distributing music, amoung other things. Virtual Worlds for Business lists many examples at http://www.nbhorizons.com/list.htm.

A Linden Labs report for the year 2009 stated that Second Life user-to-user transactions totaled $567 million.

Second Life features nearly all of the functionality of the World Wide Web, especially with the introduction the Shared Media browser in early 2010. Shared Media allows users to browse and interact with the Web from within Second Life. Users inside Second Life can post to Web forums or Wikis, send e-mail and use chat; live or archived video can be streamed from a Web server into Second Life; users can access World Wide Web links while within Second Life.

Linden Labs also runs Teen Second Life, which is just for people aged 13 to 17. 3DEmbodiment can help adult clients navigate the requirements for running educational islands for teens.