While I'm sure many Singaporeans are Second Life residents, many of the friends I've spoken to find that Second Life (SL) does not sustain their interest for long. Perhaps it's just my sphere of friends who just aren't that interested in walking around in a virtual world buying items you can't use in Real Life (RL), chatting up with a blue skinned bunny in a skirt who might really be a man, purchasing a house with RL money that you can't live in. The list goes on! Perhaps we just like tangible things. And perhaps the rewards of living a full SL life are intangible. I'll never know. (Read the blog of a Singaporean woman who met her fiance in SL then in RL)
Still, from my experience, SL is pretty boring. I was on it twice and gave up. My workmate was on it for 2 weekends and never touched it since. I still like my get-in-and-slash/kill kinda games. Many might argue that SL is NOT a game, it's a social networking virtual world blah blah, one cannot deny that it is a form of role playing and it IS a MMORPG. Many do not go in as themselves, they go in playing the role of some entity they've created, dressed and named.
For the longest time, Singaporeans have been holding 'meet-ups' or 'outings', where people who've met online in chat rooms or forums get together and well, meet up in RL. Now, with SL, they met up in the virtual world!
Yes, yes, exciting enough.
That's apparently atop a yatch. "We talked through SL evening to dusk. Then I made breakfast, and watched Ivan and Kevin engage in a Star Wars lightsaber battle." right.
Sometimes they meet up in RL and do stuff like:
Though it's been hailed by many as the next big thing, google "SL" and "boring" and you'll find heaps of posts and articles including these:
Reuters/Second Life ยป Second Life meetings: Just as boring as RL?
How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life
Sears in second life: as boring as the real store
Second Life: 'Unless you're a sexual deviant, boring as hell'
I guess all this including Linden Labs being really loose about its active users doesn't really bother the Singapore government ("Along with at least two other agencies, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) has bought real estate to operate in a universe that exists only online...Besides the IDA, the Singapore Tourism Board and Economic Development Board have bought stakes there - not for commercial gain, but to reach their audiences, or to explore operations in a virtual world.") and this local firm that wants to be the first to start a telco in SL.