BlogPhiladelphia: Session on Virtual Worlds and Second Life

Don Bain from the electic sheep company led a discussion about virtual communities and Second Life. I noticed that Don does not show a lot of emotion.

Some stats in his presentation: Eight million items are created every day on Second Life, 12 gigabits per second aggregate bandwidth, 40% of users in Europe.

• Says we are in the first inning for virtual worlds.
• Shows us Second Life and the Ben and Jerry's area. Why not call your friend and physically GO to Ben and Jerry's.
• Lots of cross-cultural interaction recently, especially between continents.
• I enjoyed the discussion as many of the attendees clearly have been online for a longtime. We discussed MUDs, AOL, etc. and compared them to Second Life.
• Honestly, I don't get it. I really don't get it. I might be lame, but Second Life is like irc in 3d with advertisement areas. It's a cute game but with all of their stats, how long before people leave the real world completely?

Also, Jillian from Phillyist liveblogged today so you can get a full play-by-play from her.