Millions and millions of people from all over the world have discovered the new virtual universe of Second Life. There you can meet new people, make friends, conduct business, build empires, whatever your imagination can conjure. This easy to use Beginner's Guide takes you step-by-step through the process of going from embarrassingly unprepared "Newbie" to a seasoned resident in no time. Learn how to design an Avatar for your new appearance. You can look like anyone or anything you desire. Buy land, build a house, a fortress, or even an entire city. Buy and island. Create new products and services and sell them to other residents for Linden Dollars, which can be converted to real US dollars. This book shows you how, with step by step exercises, examples, loads of illustrations, everything you need to get started and having fun.

If you have just arrived at the Second Life® virtual world and are absolutely clueless about how to proceed, or baffled by the technical slang used by fellow users when they try to explain things to you, this is the guide you need to finally make some sense of what to do and how to have fun in Second Life!

Live your Second Life to the fullest! Create Your Virtual Life in an Incredible Online World...Right Now! Imagine a virtual landscape where everything is created and owned entirely by residents like you. Imagine a place where you can enjoy sunsets, ride a jet ski, buy land, plant a garden, get a tattoo, go sky diving, spend an evening dancing the night away, or relax at home by the fire. Picture a world vividly developed, socially dynamic, and strikingly real where you can bring previously unimaginable things to life with friends from around the globe. This is Second Life®, the hottest Internet phenomenon in years…maybe ever! Now, there’s a totally real, totally independent guide to Second Life. This full-color book is as rich as Second Life itself! It’s packed with insider tips, easy step-by-step techniques, and interviews with dozens of SL residents telling you what they wished they knew when they started! Brian White pulls no punches: You’ll learn exactly what’s great and not so great about SL...how to thrive in its unique culture, and how to create your dreams! The more time you spend in Second Life, the more useful this book will become...teaching you more advanced skills; everything from vehicle construction, Linden Scripting Language, particle systems, to creating custom animations and the new sculpted prims! Visit the companion site in Second Life to find all the textures and objects from this book as well as the contributor’s gallery and other goodies: http://slurl.com/secondlife/humuli/222/123/29

"You'll discover the unique challenges and opportunities of running an in-world business. You'll delve into the most popular Second Life business and get practical pointers from some of the metaverse's best-known entrepreneurs. And you'll get the nuts-and-bolts expertise you need to succeed, from developing a unique product or service to mounting an effective marketing campaign."--Jacket.

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. At the time of its initial publication in 2008, Coming of Age in Second Life was the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Now with a new preface in which the author places his book in light of the most recent transformations in online culture, Coming of Age in Second Life remains the classic ethnography of virtual worlds.