Second Life

Well overall my second life experience is pretty slow. It is probably my computer but other wise second life world is pretty fascinating. I was impressed immediately by the depth of rules and expectations in this virtual world. Not only does it mimic common courtesy of the real world it is essential to maintaining an open environment where creativity can be shared without the threat of being harassed or compromised. In short you still have your own privacy and rights just like in life.
I am still trying to get a grasp on how Second Life works and how much it actually involves. I am not that involved in the whole programming thing so it is difficult for me to really wrap my head around it.
I have to say though I do not usually have major issues on my computer, it is a bit slow, however SL continuously crashed. I did read a notice about the system crashing but I did find that to be disappointing.
The concept of SL is pretty interesting though; there are many ways to interact on a social level or on a professional level and people are surprisingly paying a lot of money for virtual property. I stepped into an auction online and it was going for $2,500.00. To me that is a jaw dropper and I suppose the most intriguing part of it all to me. 270 Linden Dollars is equal to one US dollar, approximately. I am very curious as to how people can justify purchasing virtual property-but the fact that people do buy it makes me want to start creating.
I think that as the program and the programmers (Linden Lab) create a more and more developed world with more real world relevance it can be used as a tool in lue of actually meeting with people. I am timid to expect that everyone uses this virtual world as an actual means of living a life. I was impressed at first by the volume of people that have logged onto SL but in reality there are not that many everyday users who actually spend a considerable amount of time online. Wikipedia pointed about that many users are non-active accounts and the real representation of users is closer to 20,000-30,000 people in a given day; definitely still notable. I am curious to follow where SL goes to and there is more improvements on the way, including real time voice between avatars. That would be interesting to see and experience. Like I said SL has promise and is obviously getting a lot of attention from the public, if it were just a bit more practical or applicable in day to day activity it would really take off.