Book

Au, Wagner James.

The making of Second Life : notes from the new world / Wagner James Au.

1st ed.

New York : Collins, ©2008.

xxii, 274 pages ; 24 cm

An account of the creation, development, and potential of Linden Lab's popular virtual world evaluates its pseudo-economy, culture, and political system, citing the lucrative profits being made there by such real-world companies as Pontiac and Sun Microsystems.

Second Life (Game)

Shared virtual environments.

Includes index.

Introduction : old world to new world : a brief history of the metaverse -- Touching knowledge : from virtual reality to real company -- Imagining the Net in 3-D : shunting the datastream into rivers and sky -- The engines of creation : the alchemy of user-created content -- The unwisdom of crowds : object lessons in online-world social engineering -- Self-made mankind : identity and role-playing with the digital generation -- Making love : romance and desire, digitized for your protection -- Building walls, defending territory : border disputes and culture clashing in war's shadow -- Burning down the house : democracy as a business model -- Avatar as entrepreneur : from content creator to revenue generator -- Investing in utopia : a rough explorer's guidefor corporations and organizations in the metaverse -- Law is code : crime and punishment in the Net's 3-D future -- Building a better world : research, education, and activism in an online world -- Convergence : an internet-to-online world road map for the next decade.

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

2007028684

9780061353208

0061353205

155715254

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0

1

685134

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794.8 Au