Second Life: RL meets SL in Silicon Alley

The New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA) inaugurated the first session of its new Second Life SIG this evening by hosting a combo real/virtual world Second Life meeting.SIG leader Robert Visser, a software developer and Second Life resident, virtually convened about half a dozen Second Life entrepreneurs at the Club Pyramid while welcoming about 20 NYC technologists to NYSIA’s downtown Manhattan headquarters. 

Visser is a new resident of Second Life, but an impassioned one. He has launched a Second Life SIG to help the NYC software community explore business development opportunities within Second Life.

According to Second Life:

Second Life is a 3D platform for developers who want to present, promote, and sell their content and applications to a broad online audience within an immersive, shared space.
Second Life provides our expanding developer community with ownership of anything it builds or creates in Second Life. It is yours to sell, trade or monetize within the rapidly increasing population of Second Life Residents. 

Second Life resident, Modesta Heying, shared her entrepreneurial success: 

I am a real estate speculator in SL which I started on December 10th, 2006. I got my first start in buying and selling land with my first purchase of a 256 sq.m. lot for 2200L. I sold it for 6000L couple of days later which got me very interested in land in SL. Now, my weekly transactions average about 500,000L and growing. 

 

With the dramatic increase in the number of people online in the last 6 weeks, there is a greater demand for certain services. There is a greater need for builders, interior decorators and management that can help with the transition from RL to SL.

Keystone Bouchard, real life architect at Second Life Developer Clear Ink: 

The eventual virtual metaverse will become a place for business meetings, virtual interaction, community interaction and a virtual counterpart and augmentation of bricks and mortar functions. 

We use Second Life to build our architecture studio’s real life projects and give clients virtual tours of our design ideas. Second Life provides an unprecedented level of visualization and design immersion for our clients.

Visser engaged the real NYSIA members with virtual displays of flying over buildings, walking through doors and sipping wine at the club.

The SL wine served up at Club Pyramid, however, could not match the satisfaction of the RL pizza, offered courtesy of NYSIA.