Previously I have discussed the interface of the standard Second Life client. But on this post I’m looking at how people can step up beyond their usual real world methods when giving a presentation or talk in Second Life (SL). Now I’m not an expert on Second Life, but I have noticed a few things that work and don’t work when presenting a talk. Most of them are really simple if you think about it. But we are making way too may assumptions that Second Life works like Real Life (RL).

When doing a presentation in Second Life:

I have discussed Second Life previously. It’s the imersive 3D world by Linden Labs. It’s the type of online application that doesn’t really sit anywhere that can be categorised. With Second Life, I find you tend to visit, gain interest then leave, maybe you come back from time to time, maybe you don’t. Second Life does tend to have a high attrition rate (up to 85%).

Photo:Miles Burke

Yesterday was BarCamp time here in Perth. It brought together not only the usual web industry technical people but also those from the education, interactive media, librarians and students. This was good melting pot of people within related industries which allowed for a full program at the end of the day.

Didn’t get to some of the talks in the morning which is a shame, I missed Scott Barnes‘ Silverlight presentation as we planned for our Web Business Panel. Also missed the Explaining Web 2.0 to “noobs” session, mainly due to the room not being conducive to people sneaking into the room late.

I had a play with Second Life when it was still in beta (way back in the pre version 1 days in 2004). At that point it was interesting, a nice concept, you could just build things, do a little scripting, the client was a little flaky at best. But I could see potential, one problem, no residents (users in Second Life), it was hard to find your fellow users. It was seen at that point as little more than a fancy IRC. But business called and I left Second Life behind to focus on my First Life.