3 Tips for a Compelling Second Life Simulation

I’ve been playing with Linden Lab’s Second Life for a couple of years now. My roommate in college was into it from the beginning. At first, I thought he was crazy but I slowly started to understand. Before too long, I could tell that Second Life was going to become something that we’d all want to pay attention too.

Recently, it seems like every major media company has launched their own presence in Second Life. Every couple of days you’ll read about it in some major news publication. This is great but when you go to the company’s Second Life simulation it’s typically empty.

There are three things that you can do which will help save you from this same fate of Second Life simulation mediocrity.

1. Create an amazing environment
When I walk on to your Second Life island, I don’t want to feel like i’m standing infront of just any old building. Create something exciting. Create a place I’d love to travel to but can’t do it right this second, like the other side of the world. Create some place that is only a fantasy, like something out of a book. If the experience of the environment is good enough, I will want to come back there again and again.

2. Create great community
Second Life allows for me to interact with other people that are across the country or on the other side of the world as if they are standing right next to me. This is very powerful. This allows for some pretty amazing cross cultural exchanges. If you can bring an interesting diverse community of people together that I can’t get easily in real life, I’d come back to the simulation.

3. Create great activities
In Second Life, you are not bound by the same physical or social boundaries that you are in everyday life. This allows a more wide range of activites to take place that you wouldn’t normally be able to do at the drop of a hat. You should create activites in your Second Life simulation that are fun and that I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. For example, I recently went skiing down the side of a big mountain with a variety of friends from across the world.

You can mix and match or even do all three and you will have a great Second Life simulation. It will spare your fate from becoming just another island in Second Life that no one comes to.