*Online Life – Feature Idea

Take a step back and observe the world around you today and it is quite shockingly different from the world we lived in only 10 years ago. Mobile phones, PDA’s, laptop computers and easy access to what Al Gore coined the “information superhighway”. The thing is – it isn’t just information we get on the internet anymore. It has insidiously invaded all areas of our lives and increasingly we are dependent on it.

Parallel universes, once the stuff of Sci-Fi movies, have become a reality through the internet. Online communities are more active, coherent and accessible than the communities on our doorsteps. Reuters have even assigned a journalist to an entirely fictional cyber world called Second Life.

Second Life is a 3D virtual world which is built entirely by its own residents. It is currently inhabited by about 1,585,711 and is growing by the day. In this world, you can build a house, start a business, it even has its own currency, the Linden Dollar, which can be converted to US dollars. (as I write this $652,346 has gone through Second Life in the last 24 hours) This world is created and maintained by San Francisco-based Linden Lab.

Real world companies are flocking to this virtual world. Toyota, Adidas and Sony have all invested but the biggest investor is IBM which has allocated $10 million to expanding its presence in virtual worlds over the next 12 months.

I have become Dai Sungsoo (he is a rather more handsome version of myself – cyber plastic surgery is very affordable!) and I am going to explore this new world, weigh up its potential benefits and negatives and report to back to you on my experiences in a parallel dimension. I hope to interview the Reuters journalist in this virtual world and also conduct interviews with other members of this online community.

Wish me luck!