What is Second Life?

A parallel universe
Second Life was created by US company Linden Lab in 2003. It may look like a video game, but it's much more than that! Second Life is a graphic 3D world in which almost anything is possible. It's not a game because there's nothing to win, no battles to fight or baddies to kill. You create an avatar (identity), using your chosen first name and a surname chosen from a list, customise your avatar however you want and move it around, interacting with other 'residents' and creating your own story.

Anything's possible
SL was designed as a massive empty stretch of ground on which residents, or SLifers, can build a new existence. You can buy a virtual island, build a house, a hotel , nightclub, shop or business. There's nothing virtual about the Linden dollar, which is a real currency (L$), invented for Second Life and exchanged for US dollars at a rate of 250 L$ for 1$. But it's completely free to sign up and free to teleport yourself from one place to another.