Second Life: A new world of virtual experience

BANGALORE, INDIA: Second Life or the 3-D virtual world is rapidly growing and becoming popular among the tech savvy youth. Today, all big businesses have set up shops in this amazing second world, and offer services ranging from real estate, retail and even viral beverages.

An estimated 14 million residents inhabit in Second Life, most being the tech savvy youth in age group of 25- 35. The population of this entirely different world constitutes people form all nationalities among whom 35 percent are from US and Indians constitute less than one percent.

Everything in Second Life, except for the land, has been created by its residents and they trade in Linden dollars (1 USD = 270 L$). Linden Labs have the exclusive rights to create islands and do so as driven by the demands of the world.

Residents retain the rights to their digital creations in Second Life. They can buy, sell and trade with other residents. It has a marketplace that currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the inworld unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar.

According to S. Sundararaj, Founder member of Anantara Solutions Pvt. Ltd, the total business transacted in the Second Life is now over $19 million a year. The supply of finance has grown from 2.6 billion to 5.1 billion Linden dollars in the last 12 months.

Almost all biggies in business world, including Microsoft, Dell, SAP, etc., and large retailers like Nike, Adidas, etc., have their presence on Second Life. Not to be left behind, some Indian IT companies like Wipro, Satyam have recently set up their presence in the virtual world.

The Anantara founder member said that an increasingly more real life brands are adopting Second Life as a platform for their businesses. Almost 100 real life brands from different industries have their presence on Second Life covering automotive, banking and finance, fashion, technology, telecommunications, retail, sports, media and entertainment, travel and more.

Second Life provides users a wider platform for research, testing, simulation and prototyping, events, brand promotion, besides philanthropy and fundraising. The activities conducted in the virtual world have a global reach and hence more effective, he said.

On the cost of having a place in Second Life Sundararaj said that having an office space of about 20,000sqft would cost around Rs. 5-6 lakhs. He said that Anantara Solutions, launched recently for providing consulting, technology and outsourcing practice for Second Life, was currently involved with three clients, including a US- based logistics firm.