Kostya:

It is a complex problems and economists are already looking into it.  And speaking of restrictions, gambling in Second Life has been made illegal to comply with federal regulations.

Good. The next step is Sarbanes Oxley with army of auditors, hehe 

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My view is that SL and similar sites are for people who has real life problems with communication or un-happy and looking for escape... same type of people use drugs or alcohol, SL is just safer....

Then, there are interpreneurs who prey on those people ....

 

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- Независимость - это когда в 20-й раз наступаешь на одни и те же грабли, а русские уже ни при чем....

SL Wiki

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KGBMan:

My view is that SL and similar sites are for people who has real life problems with communication or un-happy and looking for escape... same type of people use drugs or alcohol, SL is just safer....

Can you point to any evidence to support your view?  Is your view the same about people who use internet?

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Kostya, where do you see opportunities for developers in SL?

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Second Life has a scripting language where you can do lots of things. Lots of people have developed plug-ins that can be uploaded to your or other accounts to make them do things, like Chatbot, a program that for example if you have a bar in SL and you are not there, the program will greet the people, another example they gave is a car with "attitude" that talks, etc. Using the scripting language you can make avatars make gestures, and even there is a guy right now who is either being sued or is suing somebody because they stole his program that would enable private parts and some "gestures" associated with them, he made a ton of money on it. So there are a lot of possibilities to make money, promote products, stage experiments, etc

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Свободу попугаям!

_Sergey_:

Kostya, where do you see opportunities for developers in SL?

I will ignore actual development efforts required to build and maintain virtual world grid, users and related technologies, since these developments would be considered 'real world".  Instead I will concentrate only on opportunities within the virtual worlds themselves.

The opportunities in SL are no different from RL for a large part of the development.  Anything from content and application creation to web design and software architecture would be present in SL.

Majority of web applications can be migrated to SL to provide users with more realistic experience. The difference is whether the technologies of today (like HTML, ASP, PHP, JSP, etc.) used to display information to the user on a web page will be replaced by new technologies of the virtual worlds.

I work in the travel industry and I can see how travel companies can utilize SL to sell to and support their customers with great success.  In fact, one of the islands is owned by a travel company called STA Travel (http://www.virtualstatravel.com/).  A lot of development effort went into programming for the interfaces and all the applications that went behind their virtual presence.

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Kostya:

KGBMan:

My view is that SL and similar sites are for people who has real life problems with communication or un-happy and looking for escape... same type of people use drugs or alcohol, SL is just safer....

Can you point to any evidence to support your view?  Is your view the same about people who use internet?

Why would you spend time in a make belief, virtual world, when you can see things and talk to people in real life ???

Some internet users who spend all their time in it are in the same category.

I enjoy couple forums, computer gaming, but actuly replicating real life in virtual ? why ?

Why would I look at badly rendered characters and imagine I'm talking to real person ? Why would I want to buy anything in a place that can be turned off tomorrow ?

It's the same thing with all online games. people can't get someone to talk to who will not judge them .....

It's an escape.

All people in SL need therapy !! 

 

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- Независимость - это когда в 20-й раз наступаешь на одни и те же грабли, а русские уже ни при чем....

KGBMan:

Why would you spend time in a make belief, virtual world, when you can see things and talk to people in real life ???

You can talk to people who you would not normally get a chance to talk to in real life.

KGBMan:

Some internet users who spend all their time in it are in the same category.

Spending excessive amount of time engaging in any single activity will probably cause some mental problems.  Would you put people who watch too much TV, spend time at the gym, read books, play sports, or engage in other activity that is not essential for survival in the same category?

KGBMan:

I enjoy couple forums, computer gaming, but actuly replicating real life in virtual ? why ?

Why would I look at badly rendered characters and imagine I'm talking to real person ? Why would I want to buy anything in a place that can be turned off tomorrow ?

You don't have to imagine that you're talking to the real person, because you are actually talking to the real person.  Avatar is just a virual representation of the real person you're talking to, which might or might not resemble the appearance of the person.  Forums use avatars for similar reasons.

You would want to buy things either because you get some benefit from it or as an investment.  Why do people invest in real estate? In stocks? In gold? Anything can happen tomorrow in real life as well, but that does not stop people from planning their future.

KGBMan:

All people in SL need therapy !!

Hehe.  I am sure they have a therapist in SL that is offering his/her services  

 

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I absolutely agree with KGBman.. I was beginning to play Linage 2 and have many friends who played it or  plaing it for many years. I can tell you that every single MMORPG is a life-replacement, not only Second Life, a cage for a conscious, it makes people very passive.

No doubt big corporations are making huge investments in this kind of games, they are able to gain millions people under total control, it's the easiest way to get such a big influence so cheap. this is not the end of the story, virtual life is going to be harsh reality, a big problem of the future society.

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music of meah

Actually I am not sure what you guys are saying, this forum is a form of 2-d SL with "KGBMan" and "green_minstrey" as your avatars and based on the number of posts you guys spend a really hefty amount of time here, same thing there only in a more interactive environment, if you want to have a concert in SL, you just build a stage, advertise, and do your thing into the mic and the avatar will act it out. how is that not real? if anything, it's a form of a meeting place much like the forum only even more in real time. IBM and Linden are talking about having a universal avatars that can be imported throughout different environments, which means you can persist your identity across multiple forms of communication, be it forum, or SL, or any other game like it. I totally disagree about statements that these games make you passive, on the other hand if you have any creative thought its much easier to reach a wide audience through the game than in "real" world.

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Свободу попугаям!

bobik3000:

Actually I am not sure what you guys are saying, this forum is a form of 2-d SL with "KGBMan" and "green_minstrey" as your avatars and based on...

Hey, it's his real photo

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_Sergey_:

Hey, it's his real photo

Why would you look at the photos when you can talk to real people?

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This forum has advantages on Second Life, sir bobrig, you can probably see no value at them though. :) It makes sense to stay here only because of some interesting guys, to be honest and Egor, but she disappeared. Besides that, i don't watch TV at all, and here i can choose what problem i want get in deeper. And SL still does make you passive, senseless and zombieish, a tool of the smart mind, ugu.. you're protesting without any proofs, that's not really serious.. :)

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music of meah

Kostya:

_Sergey_:

Hey, it's his real photo

Why would you look at the photos when you can talk to real people?

I am not sure why my post raised that question but here is what I think

You can make picture perfect but not real person. You imagine yourself an image of that person that way you like it. You communicate with the image you like. In real life that person can be not pleasant to communicate with, and most interestingly, you yourself can be boring, look repulsive in your behavior and not worth talking to.

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