PR in Second Life? Are they kidding?

You missed a lot, since you logged out too early! First of, Second Life is an environment FOR adults. The game requires you to be 18 or older to even be there and there is TEEN Second Life for teenagers I believe over 14, they have their own restricted account and age appropriate sections, but if you have a child playing SL in the house, I suggest for any parent to make them stop.

Second of all, yes sex sells, and it looks like they're the most popular places, but that's just the money that buys popularity. If lindens fail on one thing is to show you the basic world exploring tools as you come in, so you can get the most out of your experience...

Go to the search feature, click on the 'Places' tab and put in a keyword. It could be "China" or "lancelot" or "college" or "skydiving" or your dearest hobby, chances are, you'll find a community there and a whole great sim about it. I've been in SL since November 06 and still find new wonderful places and faces everyday, not to mention learning skills to create and add to the complexity of it all.
Give it another chance!

You are missing a great deal Mr. Heller, mostly due to the ineptitude of the Second Life creators. Second life is a world in its own, rich in content and details ranging from the quixotic, to the inane. If you can dream about it, you can do it in Second Life.

It is unfortunate that there is so much pornographic material in SL, but as they say, sex _does_ sell, and usually in the quickest fashion. However, the "Most Popular" list in Second Life, I regret to say, is totally borked and useless. The numbers on it are artificially inflated because the businesses in question use devices called "Camping Chairs" that pay unsuspecting newbies mere pennies on the hour to come 'hang out' in a zombie-like state typically doing Nothing but sitting or dancing unattended. The longer these 'Zombies' stay, the more 'pennies' they get.

Meanwhile, the poor Zombies, not knowing any better, or perhaps not caring, never learn about the aforementioned richer content of SL. A sad state of affairs.

Mr. Heller - if you would like a personal tour of some of the things Second Life has to offer, drop me an email and lets talk :)

Asking if Second Life is credible because of the initial exposure to adult content is a bit like asking if any large city is viable for business after walking the streets and seeing prostitutes. Remember the web experienced this same sort of questions in its infancy, would you question its business viability today based on the amount of adult content available? Maybe 10 years ago, but certainly not now. Second Life and 3D virtual worlds are changing the way humans communicate and share information.

QTLabs Inc.

>>missing something

Have another go :)

For some it just grabs you. It did me. For others it takes some perseverance before you become fully immersed.

Look me up using the people search, i'll be glad to give you hand.

Yes. I think you are missing something here.

Second Life isn't just about this particular virtual universe. It's the world wide web gone 3 dimensional. Our Internet experiences no longer have to be flat, not interactive, as it is on the world wide web.

Sure, it's buggy. The search engine really is awful. And, yes, there is plenty of porn and gambling, just like on the www. But that will change soon.

Big businesses reallize that their websites will soon be history. Consumer behavior is all about interaction and personalization. Virtual worlds are perfect platforms for retailing.

Barack Obama is rolling out a second life campaign strategy because the demographics of users are 20 - 32, his target market.

Universities are putting their digital libraries on second life. Virtual classrooms are far superior than current online courses.

The opportunites are endless. And inevitable.

Martin,
I'll tell you what you are missing.
It's called "Investigative Journalism"

Thanks to all of you who had substantive things to say. I'm hearing that there might be reasons to put up with the bugs, cheesiness, and steep learning curve of Second Life.

A couple of you offered to help me learn the ropes in SL. I appreciate the offer, but it may be a couple of weeks before I can take you up on it: I'm in the middle of several big writing and programming projects for clients with hard deadlines, and SL seems like it could be a real time sink if I got into it.

Martin, Second Life is a very vibrant, multifaceted place. I'm sorry that it came across to you as being all about sex -- the businesses that are sexually oriented tend to make themselves very visible.

I'd invite you to check out the Metaverse Messenger (www.metaversemessenger.com), a weekly newspaper that covers events in SL. I think you'll be surprised at what a variety of activities there are.

Hi Martin,
You have missed so much that Second Life offers. I would like to offer to show you around and answer any questions you might have concerning SL.
Please give Second Life a chance, and I am sure you will not be sorry you did. And, yes it can be addictive but I guarantee you it will be the best addiction you ever thought you had.
There is so much to do, so much is offered to the community. you owe it to your self to take advantage of it.
Hope to hear from you.

"Am I missing something?"

Yeah, this:

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/10/16.html

Don't let the kool-aid drinkers fool you, Martin. Second Life is not the future of the Internet. It is no social revolution. It is, instead, an intrepidly marketed and somewhat interesting MMORPG that will, I think, be dead within the year.

Legal issues and eventually revealed hyperbole (like the fact that less than .002% of the registered residents have a positive monthly cash flow of *any* fraction of a cent despite claims of economic opportunity) will show people that while Second Life may be a fun place to build something cool, funny, or interesting, it is not by any means revolutionary in character.

Jon, you're right: I did miss that video. It wasn't for lack of trying, however: it doesn't play properly in IE on Windows.

Today I finally saw it, by browsing the page with Firefox.