Galactic Interactions

Second Life isn't a game, exactly. Some call it that, and indeed it is sometimes compared to various massive multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs). Really, though, Second Life is a virtual online world— it's not really a game, and there aren't a lot of default "gameplay" elements. Some call it "Web 3.0," but I think that sort of misses the point; it's not really the next version of the web.

Of course, what with it not being a game, one thing that people ask is, what do you do there? There are a lot of things to do. I enjoy building stuff. You can talk to friends, just like Internet instant messaging or chat software (going back to IRC and VMS Phone and Unix Talk and doubtless other things I don't know about) without a virtual presence. And, one thing you can do is go to live music concerts; there do tend to be quite a number of them. A Second Life resident will perform, using a live stream which is then piped to your computer.

A couple of hours ago, I went to a concert by Catherine Moody. She's a classical pianist who performs fairly frequently in Second Life, and is, as Second Life residents go, moderately well known. She's given four concerts in the last week as part of the whole "Second Life Fourth Birthday" celebration. And, she's quite good. As I understand it, the RL ("Real Life") counterpart of Catherine plays on an electric keyboard, whose output is connected directly to the stream. We didn't hear Catherine's voice at all. Sometimes, with live music performances, it's clear that it's a mic or some such connected to the stream, as there is singing, and banter between numbers. Catherine must have had her computer right next to her, because she typed the (brief) banter and told us what she would play next.

This is the first concert of Catherine's that I've made it to, and I hope to make it to more in the future.

For the rest of you, if you get into Second Life and are wondering what to do: check out some live music concerts.