In reading H, C & K’s “Your Second Life“, it occured to me that when our project is completed – Cheshire Academy Admission Center – I will be at a loss in Second Life. I consider this building my virtual home. Without having thought about it before, I’m very comfortable there. It’s home base – I can travel anywhere in SL, but since this project began, this is where I return after my travels. This brings me to what was said on page 201, “In order to maintain a durable presence in the peristent world of Second Life, you must purchase a lot of land using Linden Dollars.” OMG, I’m homeless!
I’ve always felt SL was a place to explore. And I’ve had fun doing so. But like any well-worn traveler, I need a place to call my own. And then it hit me. This is the Linden model – more then building a chair, creating a cute avatar, or attending an inworld conference – it’s about the land. OMG, I’m homeless!
For my final project, I was fortunate to know a professional designer who owns two islands in SL. He gave my team an empty building that we’ve designed and filled with branding and marketing content to introduce prospective families to Cheshire Academy (an independent, college prepartory school), entice them to make a RL visit, and make an application. We can have it for a little while after the final presentation, but it’s not mine to keep. OMG, I’m homeless!
When I realize that the property we’ve created is temporary data that I cannot save and take with me, the notion of intellectual property rights and who owns what moves to the forefront. It seems that Linden Labs has a lot of power since in theory they can reclaim all property in SL. But doing so would alienate all the residents, thus eliminating the company’s source of income. OMG, I’m homeless!
Since I don’t own any land at present, this is not a worry that keeps me up at night. But since I have invested many, many hours designing, building, editing, I don’t want to give this up so quickly. Being thrown out onto the virtual street is not the way I want to remember our collaboration to create an educational selling environment. I really like what we’ve accomplished and I’d like to see it move forward to an actual, working site. And to go one step further, I’d like to “own” what we’ve created so that it can be preserved for future use.
It’s only at the end, do I realize how this “game” is played. Just like in RL, you need to “buy in” to those who own the land. You work to create. You sell your creations to fund SL activities – buying land for example. You get taxed on the land you own, so you have to keep working to pay the taxes. (this sounds very familiar) But even then, digitally speaking, you don’t even own a “bit”. It’s overwhelming when you think about it. I don’t have a conclusion yet…I’m still thinking about OMG, I’m homeless!
