Comments on: Virtual Realities – Second Life Going Global

By: Laurel Delaney

Laurel Delaney — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:09:01 +0000

Fascinating. Now if I can just figure out how to use — I’m registered as Laurel Barthelmess — Second Life, I’ll be a happy globetrotting gal!

By: Aleister Kronos

Aleister Kronos — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:58:13 +0000

Picking up on Gwyn’s comments…
We are already seeing this localisation of cultures in SL, largely driven (understandably) on language boundaries. In fact, this localisation has been a feature for as long as I have been a resident (OK – far less time than Gwyn, but still over 9 months).

There have been substantial German communities for a long time, and significant Dutch communities are now catching up. The influx of Brazillians in late 2006 saw a number of Brazillian communities establish themselves – indeed, these are among the most active and vibrant in SL. And this greatly predates the Kaizen “outsourcing”. That said, it has also identified a need for a Portuguese-friendly access point into SL to tap into a large and enthusiastic market – a need now met by Kaizen.

In my travels in SL I am also struck by the huge numbers of Japanese sims, many of them brand new or only a few months old. I have not yet got to the bottom of this, since Japan currently represents only a tiny fraction of SL users. Is there an anticipated surge in Japanese takeup of SL? I watch and wait with interest.

By: Gwyneth Llewelyn

Gwyneth Llewelyn — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 09:50:57 +0000

The interesting aspect is that Second Life, so far, has been an international environment where the national borders were secondary (timezones are important; language and culture not so much). It seems to be moving towards being, as you said, a "global" environment, but in a different form: instead of having an international audience sharing the same space, it becomes a cluster of local/national regions, each with a language and culture, but sharing the same environment. The distinction is sometimes blurry and hard to find, but the same happened to the Internet, as people moved from a mostly English-speaking metaculture to locally produced content; China's own Baidu search engine is one of the top ten sites in the world (according to Alexa) although it practically only searches Chinese content, something that would be unthinkable a decade ago.

By: Aleister Kronos

Aleister Kronos — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:07:06 +0000

I’m pleased you enjoyed the ambiance of New Alville – which will remain a perpetual work in progress (and will never appear on a Linden Search!). My purely personal aim is to provide a space for myself and friends to meet and chat in a relaxing, amusing environment.

Thanks for the kind words and – as you already know – you are always welcome.