Building a 'Second Life'

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THE MARK: Can you explain what Second Life is all about?

ROD HUMBLE: Second Life is a completely user-created virtual world. It’s really, at its bare bones, a creativity tool. It’s a big 3-D shared space. So you can log on and make a square, or cubes that can be added together to make a wall, or a tree, or something that looks like a person. People can “own” bits of this world, and make whatever they want there.

As you move throughout the “world,” you can focus on how you want to look. Most people choose to look like virtual representations of human beings – avatars reflective of themselves. But some people walk around as animals, cars, rockets, etc. Sometimes I walk around as a pale-blue sphere.

This open platform has led to the creation of an entire virtual world. As people started to explore the tool, they began thinking, “Well, in the real world, I can run a clothing shop, I can play music, I can chat with people,” and so on. So they started doing all those same things – and more – within the virtual world. At Second Life, we’re really just following our customers – our creators – and seeing where they take us next.

THE MARK: What kind of people play Second Life?

HUMBLE: We sort of have an older crowd; mid-40s range. I think that’s interesting as well – that the tone is pretty different from something that’s aimed at teenagers. For whatever reason, there’s something about Second Life that is philosophically interesting to this demographic.

THE MARK: Do most people choose avatars that reflect their actual age and appearance?

HUMBLE: While there’s a wide variety, for the most part people go for an idealized look, that’s for sure.

THE MARK: Do you think people existing in virtual worlds get closer to, or further away from, their true selves?

HUMBLE: I don’t have a clear answer on that, but I do have an opinion. There have been a series of high-profile people, from the head of Facebook to the Pope, talking about how social media should be about centering the individual – that it is all about your real life and ensuring that you don’t become a fractured person. I respectfully disagree with that.

I think that one of the healthiest things that technology can do is actually help us develop the different dimensions of ourselves that we portray in different situations. For example, the “me” at church is very different from the “me” who plays an online shooter game. The “me” talking to you now is very different from the one who will be at my parent-teacher-association meeting later tonight. We’ve always had that. I actually like the idea of enabling people to say, “In this community, I’m a completely different person, and I can hold views that aren’t going to seep into this other part of my life.” It’s a slightly heretical position, but that’s the one I take.

THE MARK: In what ways are the virtual world and the real world becoming connected?

HUMBLE: One of the most interesting things is that we get a lot of real-world events being replicated in Second Life. We have raves, and things like that, but we have current affairs as well. This year, for example, there was a re-enactment of the Martin Luther King march within Second Life. And the day after Osama bin Laden was killed, somebody had created his entire compound in Second Life so you could walk around it and follow how the raid had gone. It is astonishing how quickly these things emerge.

I think one of the best things Second Life has given us is the opportunity to explore new frontiers. There aren’t any great, unexplored frontiers in the world anymore. You and I can’t go and become famous explorers of the Antarctic, because it’s pretty much all already known. But there is an ongoing world in Second Life – one that is limitless, and that is being created in front of you.

Exploration and socialization are the chief activities our users engage in – the idea that you can explore other people’s imaginations with them in this great, unexplored world.

THE MARK: What can this world of creativity and imagination teach the real world?

HUMBLE: I think it can help in a few ways. First and foremost is the fact that it is a platform for creativity: That Second Life enables you to be creative, and to share your creativity with other people, is incredibly positive.

Another way it can teach the real world is by enabling us to explore how people communicate when they are anonymous, in an alien environment, and able to disappear from each other. When people can log into a program like this for free and become a different person, how does that impact the individual, the group, and the society? That’s an open question, and an issue that you can observe and take part in.

One fascinating thing I’ve noticed is a tendency towards something almost like tribalism among our users. People congregate around mutual interests. For instance, there are big music communities that form. But I’ve noticed that, once they get above a certain scale (about 80 people or so), they fracture, which is really interesting.

THE MARK: Fracture into different subcultures?

HUMBLE: Yeah, different subcultures. It comes back to questions concerning what the ideal size of a group, or even a larger society, is – particularly for one that is not physically bound.

THE MARK: How will Second Life, or other virtual worlds, start interacting with the real world?

HUMBLE: The obvious areas are commercial. That’s already happening in some ways. Lots of companies, such as clothing companies, have showrooms within Second Life. We also have a lot of architects who use Second Life: Instead of just drawing a plan for a customer’s home, they can show that customer what his or her home will actually look like, and let them walk around it and see if it feels good. Those are some of the more mundane examples.

I think what’s going to be interesting is whether people will want to make real-world spaces within Second Life. Linden Labs hasn’t moved on this at all, but at some point we’ll probably partner with Google Maps or something. Should we help people build up a 3-D version of the real world? The community surprises me every single day, so I’m hesitant to put a stamp on the future. One of the most exciting things is that I really don’t know what will happen down the road.

THE MARK: Could we see, in the future, people coming together in novel ways that go beyond commercial interests? Like e-nations, or something to that extent?

HUMBLE: Good question. I think that something big is going to happen when it comes to online associations, which are going to run headlong into conflict – probably with some totalitarian country somewhere. It’s a broader thing than just Second Life.

What’s going to happen when people identify with each other more in some online community than they do with their government or nation? It’s hard to see how that’s going to be anything other than messy.

In the past, we’ve seen – even with slower modes of communication – certain ideas, like Marxist ideas, spreading around the world and uniting people around ideas, rather than around their current rulers. At some point, a new idea is going to take shape, and it’s going to spread far more easily through this online system that we have. Then what’s going to happen?

It’s an open question; I don’t have an answer for you. I think it will happen, and it’s probably going to be one of the major thematic stories that will govern the mid part of the century. We’re due for some kind of new global idea, particularly in the field of politics – there haven’t been many new ideas when it comes to politics in recent years. It’s been pretty stable for a while, and you have to wonder when that stability will run out.

Sick of the real world? Want to upgrade your life? Don't forget to enter The Mark's "Win a Second Life" contest!

Photo courtesy of Reuters.