Flavour of the week: SL
May 20, 2008SL seems to be the flavour of the week for Richard Aedy, the presenter of Life Matters, a daily morning program on ABC Radio National. He did a segment on SL on two consecutive days: the first one was on the educational aspect, and the other one was of a more risqué nature.
The University of Queensland (UQ) has become the first sandstone university in Australia to expand into SL, according to Richard. It has leased an island for five years at the price of US$10,000. A “Religion Bazaar” will be set up on the island, where “students will be able to become characters or avatars in various places of worship, including a Mosque, Freemasons’ Lodge, Christian Church and Hindu Temple”.
While UQ may be the first of the ‘Group of Eight’ to venture into the virtual world, it is not the “pioneer” institution to do so, as pointed out by Richard; Deakin University, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, and University of Southern Queensland, amongst others, have already had a virtual presence in SL long before the newly-introduced UQ’s “Religion Bazaar”.
The segment of a more risqué nature that was broadcast this morning was nothing insightful - it was more like an orientation session, with a SL resident giving a chronicle of her avatar and SL experiences, including the romance and other R-rated activities which I will not go into details here.
To listen to these two segements, click on the link below:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2248858.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2219422.htm
May 20th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Richard forgive my ignorance, but who owns second lfe, who gets the money that is paid - is it real money paid?
Prue
May 20th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Hi, Prue.
You meant Joseph, and not Richard (who’s the radio program presenter).
Second life is owned by Linden Research. Anyone can become a resident in SL, either on free or paid membership. If you wish to purchase something in SL (e.g. hair, clothes, furniture, piece of land, or even an island) from Linden or other residents, you will use your real money (which will go to Linden Research) to buy Linden dollars to do the transactions. And you can convert your Linden dollars back to real money if you so wish. It’s a functional economy in there!
I can’t say I have the full knowledge of SL, but that’s as far as I know.
Joseph