I had already read this chapter previous to the time that I am posting it, but due to fall break I was unable to blog about it until returning back to school today, which is the reason I am posting late.

In this chapter the author discusses visuality, land, building, objects, lag, afk, immersion and presence.  All of these terms play a significant role within Secondlife.  After reading about each term within this chapter I got a better idea of what they were, or meant, and how they were reflected in Secondlife.

The first section of this chapter talks about visuality and land.  In secondlife you are able to purchase and sell land to other users, and what they do with this land is up to them.  The author makes an interesting comment when he says, “a defining characteristic of a virtual world (versus a blog or website) was that it was a place in which you could look around” (p. 92).  Someone from the actual world has the ability to enter this virtual place and look around at different scenery that other users have created and can create things of their own.  They can walk around, analyze objects and people, and be free to build whatever they like.  Secondlife is filled with numerous different types of places, stores, homes, and pretty much anything else you can think of.  By just typing anything of interest into the search key you can take your avatar to almost anywhere in the world, but in a virtual sense in which others have created.  Just like in real life, in secondlife one can scale different areas of land looking for the perfect spot for them to build their homes, for example if they maybe live somewhere cold in real life, perhaps in secondlife they could build their home near a beach.  Another aspect of owned land is that in secondlife you are able to control who enters the land you leave, which is similar to the actual world in that most people don’t invite strangers into their homes.

The next section in this chapter talked about builds and objects.  The author talks about secondlife being created by Linden Lab, but in reality only about less than 1% of things found in secondlife were actually created by Linden Lab.  The majority of secondlife was build by residents that utilized the site by creating and selling objects.  Avatar’s could build objects, in secondlife this was called Prims, pick out different textures and build actual buildings.  They could then save these objects in their inventory where they can access whenever they want.  For newbies who don’t know how to build yet, secondlife provides places known as sandboxes where people could learn how to build.  The objects they build could be sold for lindens or could be given away as freebies ($0 lindens).  This is good for newbies who don’t know how to earn money in secondlife.

The next two sections in this chapter is about LAG and AFK.  This is when a particular location in secondlife uses something that requires the computer to make a non stop effect such as a fountain.  Thus, lag refers to the slowing down of the program on the computer which results in small freezing of your avatar or out of syncroness.  “Lag existed because Second Life, like all “massively multiple” virtual worlds during my fieldwork, was based on a “client server” architecture, where most of the virtual world was housed on servers rather than the personal computers of residents” (p. 103).  The next section discusses AFK, which means away from keyboard.  This is when a person leaves the computer for a short period without signing off, perhaps to do something in the actual world, and their avatar remains still on secondlife.  After a few minutes the avatar will bow its head down and the word “away” appears above them.  The author says that sometimes when an avatar goes AFK, that other avatars may play tricks on them such as writing on them or pushing them into water.  In relation to the actual world, the author found that some residents “wished they could “go afk” in the actual world to escape uncomfortable situations, but knew this was not possible” (p. 112).  This was interesting in how users wish they could use this virtual ability in the real world.

The last sections in this chapter discuss immersion and presence.  Immersion refers to voice.  Some residents in secondlife which that you were able to use your actual voice while using secondlife instead of typing.  However, most residents don’t agree with this because they say it “would damage a border between the virtual and actual that they wished to maintain – that it would destroy the fantasy” (p. 114).  In terms of presence, this related to how communication in secondlife lacked a sense of presence when just typing through IM’s.  The presence existed when avatars were face to face talking.