What is Second Life?

Second Life is a virtual online world, where players control their avatars and navigate them around a virtual New York, Paris, London, jungle, surface of the moon and thousands of other locations. An overview of the game, and the program to download and play it is available here, at their own web pages.

The wikipedia introduction to Second Life is available here.

Owned and operated by Linden Labs, it was begun in 1999 by Philip Rosedale. Its unit of currency is the Linden dollar, which can be bought with your local currency. I have linked to just one monetary exchange, but there are hundreds of outlets (paypal, credit card, etc) where you purchase them.

Linden dollars are not, in my experience, absolutely necessary to live a decent Second Life, but as in the real world, they make it simpler.

You can alter the shape, skin, hair, eyes, clothes of the avatar you are 'born' with in Second Life, but then can buy better ones, ones that appeal to you more. I have been very, very frugal in my year in SL, really only buying Linden dollars to buy hair that I liked (decent hair generally costs in the region of L$200, but there are decent exceptions and often excellent 'freebies' available in-world.

Indeed, 'freebies' -items offered 'for sale' at L$0- are numerous in SL, and I have pretty much kitted out Emmanuelle's avatar (hair apart) for free, including excellent skins and very pretty clothes. It does take time to do this, however, and patience is a virtue as you read the various freebie blogs for items you want/need/desire.

I bought hair (L$200) and what was left out of an initial L$350 has now, with the odd L$10 outfit, lots of L$1 outfits, and other little items to accessorize my SL have left me with the grand total of L$2. I can play and enjoy SL with this, but...hmmm.....let's see where this goes, shall we?