A second life

Online game Second Life has more than 8 lakh denizens, where many earn a real-world, full-time living, selling things like virtual land, clothes, jewellery and weaponry or by offering virtual services, notably sex

In the beginning, Philip Rosedale created a virtual heaven and a digital earth, and then he said “let there be Second Life.” Whether it’s good or not , the 38-year-old entrepreneur’s 3-D virtual world is certainly fruitful and multiplying.Second Life now has more than 8,00,000 denizens, of whom more than a hundred are earning a real-world, full-time living there.Yes, people pay real money for things they can only use in Rosedale’s world, which can only be accessed through the Internet. Millions of real dollars change hands in Second Life regularly, and it presently has an annual gross domestic product of around $150 million.Already, organisations like Harvard University have opened operations in Second Life, while musicians like Duran Duran and Suzanne Vega have broadcast virtual concerts there using the world’s lifelike animated characters.As chief executive of Linden Research Inc, which owns Second Life, Rosedale is akin to the world’s god, with the software code he approves determining its fundamental laws.