First Half Week

3rd February Sunday

This is my second day on second life, I have spent the whole session today looking around Avatar Island (the place I chose to start on,) among the things I found there were a dance floor and objects such as cars and boats to ride on. These things all seem very fun but it makes me think that I should first turn myself into a hardcore city person first, a person who has never actually been in a boat or wandered through a forest, rather sat in an office 9-5 or hanging out at a skate park all day trying to impress the girls with my low hanging trousers, but this is slightly off topic. The point I was trying to make is that despite all these amazing features nothing seems to appeal to me personally to make use of my time on here. I shall aim next time to look for further things to do and find out how to teleport to another place in second life and look at some more of the things this game has to offer.

5th February Tuesday

Ok now I have figured out one way of teleporting to another place, I used to in-game search engine, found a place, then moved there. I searched for the word ‘money’ because I figured that in order to really get the ball rolling on this game I should earn some money. I arrived at a place called Money Island, which was the first place that came up on my search. At the moment I have had a brief look around this place. I found these ATM machines that offer you free money, I looked at one and it took me to a web page. On this page it offered free money for participation in a survey of the browser’s choice. This turned out to be a gimmick like most things on this game because in order to get this money you had to give away personal details to leading companies like Apple, but in exchange for this information you get your money and are entered into a free prize draw for a product like a Mini or an iMac. So in the end this is internet advertising dressed up.

This kind of attempt at marketing didn’t settle well with me and I am still awaiting to find something useful on here, at the moment I have just left my character dancing in the main Money Island building because that gets you L$ on this game, but in order to do this I have to suffer a barrage of advertisement massages from the building, which is annoying.

6th February Wednesday

After Money Island I wandered elsewhere to a place I saw on an advertisement in Second Life that was about leather clothing. The billboard took me straight there, the first thing I did was pick up some free snowballs that could be thrown around in allowed places. The shop there was empty and wanted money for clothing. Eventually I saw a dragon on a cliff edge near it and then there was this message about a security HUD and all of a sudden I got very confused and switched off for the day, all the time in my head trying to figure out what that meant.

7th February Thursday

I still wasn’t sure what the HUD message was about but I’m pretty sure it was and advertisement for land owners and there security or something like that. Fortunately though this place was attached to what seemed to be some kind of main-land. I have spent the last 45 minuets flying around the place looking at the places I came across. Still though it all seems quite aimless, I have yet to see some kind of motivation for me to participate in some kind of task in this game. All I see is endless empty buildings, the odd person and many opportunities to spend money. It’s a shame that I have yet to experience what everyone else seems to like about Second Life but what I wonder at the moment is: “Is this just like any other game online? Is it simply another way to show off to your friends by having more achievements than them?”

My aim for tomorrows session is to interact with some people on Second Life and find some things to do there.