Another Use for Second Life

Historical Maps in Second Life

This is great. I've previously posted about some unexpected consequences SL but I think this one - a San Francisco map collector who set-up his own SL island to display his collection - is a great use of SL that (to me at least) was completely unexpected. From the MIT Technology Review:

"A new installation inside Second Life is bringing alive one of the world's largest collections of antique maps. Called the David Rumsey Maps Island (registration required), the Second Life site is San Francisco map collector David Rumsey's latest high-technology plan to share his collection with as large an audience as possible."

Recapitulation Theory and Second Life

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Internet Timeline: everything pre-Mosaic can be considered to be proto-web...extremely necessary from an evolutionary perspective but just not that sexy (like a caveman in a Speedo).

Second Life Timeline: in the beginning there was Real Life and it was fine but we got bored and started creating MUDs and MUSHes and the like but our kids thought we were weird until we installed SimCity for them so they would stay off our backs but it backfired and we ourselves became obsessed with Godzilla laying waste to our hard work for a few years until there was no reason to limit ourselves to simulating a city or life or an ant colony, no, we could simulate ourselves and everything we hoped and aspired to be and those around us in The Sims which taught us all how comfortable we could feel in drag or engaged in virtual infidelity or strafing a city block while trying to steal the helicopter...wait, wrong game, back up...all of this kept us satiated until we discovered (drum roll followed by hush)...Second Life.

Breathe...deeply...slowly...repeat....

So we have First Life (to those of us who think that art imitates life) and Second Life (to those of us who think that life imitates art). The internet as we know it slowly evolved until it reached a tipping point, i.e. the creation and release of the Mosaic web browser. After that, to many, it all went spiraling down the toilet, what with the massively increasing onslaught of spam, porn, commercialization of something that was pure, etc, etc, etc.

I don't completely agree nor disagree with the idea that the Internet has devolved into something crass and no longer meaningful. What I find terribly interesting, however, is the way in which SL is to a large extent, mimicking the evolution of the Internet as a whole.

Porn, rampant capitalism, porn, spam glorious spam, porn, activism and/or terrorism, porn....

So, is SL ontogeny to the Internet's phylogeny?

Reading List #3

Three books I read late last year came to mind while working on my recent post concerning arbitrage opportunities in Second Life. They are:

Enjoy!

Arbitrage Opportunities in Second Life?

Second Life (SL) is gaining momentum in popular awareness as well as gaining mind- and wallet-share of first life emigrees. If you believe all/most/some of the hype, there are riches to be made in SL. Gold in dem th'ar hills, as it were. This begs the question: "Are there any arbitrage opportunities for clever investors as well?"

The Linden dollar (L$) value is indexed for the most part against the US dollar (USD), with some volatility based on supply and demand. Linden Lab has this official blurb regarding currency exchange:

"Several online resources allow residents to convert Linden Dollars into US Dollars and vice-versa. Rates fluctuate based on supply and demand, but over the last few years they have remained fairly stable at approximately 250 Linden Dollars (L$) to the US Dollar."

I was truly hoping to learn the Yahoo! Currency Converter would supply conversions, but alas, my hopes were dashed; SL economic statistics and market statistics for currency trading was the best I could hope for.

L$ exchange rates are determined by an in-life market (LindenX) where residents are able to buy and sell currency. There exist other markets, however, external to LindenX where L$ can be bought and sold against some other "real currency". What is needed then is, at minimum, two distinct markets where a pricing difference between L$ and another currency can be identified and taken advantage of in such a way where L$ are purchased at market price lower in one market than the price they can be sold for in another market.

If the fees could be compensated for and the timing issues resolved, at first consideration I would think this could be accomplished via numerous eBay auctions of L$, where each unique eBay auction is itself a distinct market. In fact, if creative individual figures out how to short sell L$ in one market while buying long in another, they will have just hedged L$ currency trades!