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[Warning: The links contained herein are highly addictive (studies confirm this claim) and the writer bears no responsibility whatsoever for individual cases of internet addiction]

In ‘Second Life’ (secondlife.com), Linden Labs claim is just what its name suggests- a second leash of life. A bit of exaggeration? Well of course, the idea of having to live out one’s life in front of a laptop was never all that appealing but if you haven’t heard of this of one, you are surely a little way down the technological time machine. This is, celeb geeks claim, the biggest storm in the cyber-world ever to be kicked up and that it hasn’t shown any signs of dying down. It is only expanding at an unfathomable rate and sure enough, it’s now officially an addiction.

So why tell you folks all this? Actually my motive behind this article is pretty simple. As we have already seen the social networking club manifest itself at monstrous rates in the past couple of years- Orkut, Hi5 and their ilk, I am more than sure that Second Life will soon find a footing too: so much for our culture of all-inclusiveness. So this is just a pre-emptive measure before the storm; I decided to use the calm for some infotech services so that when the storm hits, you know where the winds are blowing from.

Did I hear someone ask- but what would you possibly gain from a website that looks at best, a time-wasting or life-wasting project? Money I say! The internal currency is the Linden Dollar which stands at 271 Linden dollars to the US dollar as of this writing, and this gap is fast bridging. You can actually have your bank accounts deposited with the cyber-bucks (not so cyber anymore huh?)- that was for the more business minded. But for us lesser mortals, there’s always ‘normal life’ as in AVS- hanging around, meeting new people and yes they are ‘real’, singing, dancing, driving fast cars(don’t say you haven’t driven on campus, we all have, or haven’t we?)- you can go on and on. The environment has been totally evolved by the users themselves and is overwhelmingly ‘interactive’ to say the least. And here’s respite for our Romeos- there’s the odd maiden to woo too, which is pretty easy, basing the statement on personal experience; then you can actually go around with someone from the North Pole or if you are lucky, even Timbaktu.

So would you skip this life for one where you can be who you want to be, and as good-looking as you ever wished you were? Nah…. that sounds defeatist, so I would not test these waters. In any case, the low-end systems and slow connections are going to be bottlenecks in Linden Labs’ highly anticipated collaboration with fellow Aviators. But as soon as the connection speeds touch 768 kbps(in real terms), you know where to head, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Whether it’s a sheer waste of time, energy, and bandwidth or otherwise- is for you to decide. And if you indeed find someone special, don’t forget to send me a thank-you note.

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So you would like to join Second Life and see what all the fuss is about. It is actually free and easy to join. I will explain here exactly how to join step by step, just follow these simple instructions and you will be on your way to an amazing virtual world.

First you will need to meet these requirements in order to play Second Life. The current minimum requirements are a high speed internet connection such as DSL or Cable.

For Windows systems you need 2000, XP, or Vista, a processor at least 800 MHz Pentium III or Athlon, or better, 512 MB or more memory, an NVIDIA GeForce 2, GeForce 4 MX or better OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250 or better OR Intel 945 chipset graphics card, and the latest drivers.

For Mac systems you will need Mac OS X 10.4.11 or better, 1 GHz G4 or better processor, 512 MB or more memory, ATI Radeon 9200 and above OR ATI Radeon X Series OR NVIDIA GeForce 2, GeForce 4 OR NVIDIA GeForce 5000 Series and above graphics card.

For Linux a reasonably modern 32-bit Linux environment is required. If you are running a 64-bit Linux distribution then you will need its 32-bit compatibility environment installed, 800 MHz Pentium III or Athlon, or better processor, 512MB or more memory, and an NVIDIA GeForce 2, GeForce 4 MX, or better OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better graphics card.

Next go to the official Second Life website and click on the Join link. You will be presented with an option of areas to start in. Read through them and choose which one you prefer. Many of these areas have free items set up as gifts for new players. You will also find tutorials to help you learn how Second Life works when you are able to log in.

When creating your account you will be presented with your choice of first names and pre-set last names. Make your name good, this is how you will be known in Second Life. You will also provide your email address. This should be a valid email address that you have access to, not a fake one. Remember to save or write your name and password down so you do not forget them, but do not ever share them with anyone! Not even with someone claiming to work with Second Life, they do not need passwords!

Next simply download and install Second Life to your computer. The installation should prompt you as needed. Once Second Life is downloaded and installed you will see an icon of a hand on your desktop this is how you log in. Double-click on it to load SL.

Then enter your avatar’s first name and the last name you choose when signing up, your password which is case sensitive, and hit connect. You can also save your password by checking the “Remember Password” box. You may not want to save your password if your in an office, or if your children or other family members access your computer.

So that is all there is to it! Enjoy your Second Life and remember that there are so many possibilities in such an open and sculptable world.

Tips & Warnings
Remember to save or write your name and password down.
Check computer requirements are met before downloading.
Never share your account information!
Do not check “Remember Password” if your computer is used by others.
Use a valid email when signing up for an account

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How can we increase our website value? Easy, just increase the amount of traffic going to it form the major search engines. This is a lot easier than you imagine. A few simple steps will see not only an increase in your website traffic but an increase also in your search engine rankings.

The first step to look at is to find out  how high our website is ranked with one of the best Internet measuring sticks available and that is the Alexa website. Do a normal search through Alexa and find out just where your site ranks as far as world domination is concerned. This site will give you some interesting information of where you rank in terms of other countries as well. It is really quite helpful. So take a mental note of your sites rating.

So, the next step is to increase the traffic going to your website. Because if we increase your website traffic we will also increase your website value, makes sense? The fastest way to increase your website value without spending any money on it is quite simple.

All you need to do is to write some good keyword rich articles and get them published on some top article sites. This will, in a very short space of time, achieve several things, it will increase the amount of traffic flow to your website, it will increase (actually decrease the number ranking) your web site’s position on the Internet and finally it will therefore increase your website value.

It is easy to check within a few days of you starting to implement this method, just keep checking back with the Alexa site and you will quickly see that the position of your web site is getting better every day. One of my website positions actually decreased by ’several million’ places in a few days. It works that well you will find your website value will increase extremely well indeed!

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Second Life is the brain child of Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Labs out of San Francisco, CA, USA and it is a virtual world where all that you see is all made by the Residents, what the “gamers” are called, but is it a “game?”

That is what we are going to explore in this article. Is Second Life a game? If so, then why does it reflect First Life or Real World so much? But before we can decide if Second Life is a “game” the question begs to be answered, “What is Second Life?”

Most people who are on the Internet now days have been exposed to chat rooms. Either because you have children who are in chat rooms, or you have chatted in chat rooms yourself, or perhaps both. The best description that I have for Second Life is that it is a giant, 3d chat room, on steroids and kicked up a notch by having avatars that walk, run, make love, laugh, cry, play jokes, dance, fly, explore, build, script, and hug. There are the pre-requisite chat boxes both open chat and private instant message boxes where your can either talk to one person, a small group, or and large group of people in Second Life.

Daddy Linden (what I call Philip Rosendale) does not build anything in Second Life; everything you see from a small flower to a giant skyscraper is built by a Second Life Resident. The only exception to this is Basic Help and Orientation Islands where an avatar or avies are born and go to learn how to interact with their new world.

A new avie or newbie as Residents call the newer created avatars are born on Help Island fully grown, you need to learn to dress yourself, fix your hair, choose what you will look like, learn to walk, run, fly, navigate with your camera controls, walk up and down steps, take pictures, collect free stuff, and teleport to Orientation Island.

Orientation Island was a fantastic experience for me, I collected all the free stuff I could, met three fantastic friends, and learned the basics of building and at last a friend and I decided it was time to venture to the mainland. We found a “helper” and she took us to many places we since named, things like the Ninth Depth of Hell, That Weird Place, and finally landed on Svarga. A peaceful and not so densely populated place as the places we had gone previously.

From there, a friend who had gone to the mainland a week or so before me teleported me to my first **** resort, that was not so overwhelming and then I went on a two week-Real Life vacation. Upon my return I found myself with friends at the Edge and its surrounding shops trying to decide if anything was worth purchasing with our meager funds from Daddy Linden’s weekly allowance (and you only have this if you are a premium account holder). Some of the newbie purchases that I made I still have but I shake my head.

Since we didn’t own land we couldn’t drop our purchases anywhere but at sandboxes, all public sandboxes are overwhelming as anyone with a yen to script or build can go there and most do not pick up after themselves so you have animated and scripted things chasing you all over the place.

So far it looks like a game, smells like a game, and even talks like a game and most people are going how do you play this game? What are its rules?

I had an epiphany when my friend and I rented our first home together; this wasn’t a “game” where there were preset rules, or even a preset destination. This was a world where you could make up your own rules, live life by your terms, and do anything you could in First Life and stuff you wouldn’t dare in First Life.

You can meet vampires, drows, elves, furries, cartoons, and demons and I have probably missed a good bit of “other” worldly characters. So having this stuff in Second Life must make it a game, right?

There are cities and communities called sims on these sims you can shop, build, rent, sell, dance, and spend our local currency Linden Dollars on just about anything you can imagine and build.

For the “gamer” there are sims where you can go role-play and “game” within someone else’s rules and regulations, on these sims, you can die, kill and be killed and if you die you are teleported back to your home landmark.

Throughout the summer I met wonderful people, who enjoy the same things I do in Real Life, I became involved with lovely people whose avies interacted with mine. I lived and breathed Second Life and abruptly it no longer was a “game” to me, my emotions were involved with the people I interacted with, falling in love, being hurt in love, and eventually becoming an independent spirit, and discovering really who Atlantis Jewell is in Second Life.

It has been a fantastic journey, one I am intending to continue and to see where I end up. Is Second Life a game? To some it is, to me its a new way of life, I can buy, sell, build, interact with friends from all over the world, making new friendships, exchanging ideas, consoling each other on Second Life’s highs and lows, we love, fight and stand together a new community, new possibilities, where dreams do come true.

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If you were asked to put a value on your website what would it be? Perhaps you paid a small fortune and commissioned a top design agency to build it. It would still be worth at least what you paid for it, right?

It’s a sad fact that a great number of websites are worthless. They give no value to their owners and are little more than a drain on resources. Would it surprise you if your website was classed as one of these?

The World Wide Web is made up of millions of webpages so it’s not surprising that many are rarely seen by human eyes other than their owners’ and creators’. These unfulfilled webpages are like trees in a forest. They can make as much noise as they want, but if no one is around to hear it then who is to know they ever made a sound? Too many of those that are seen by people are poor at encouraging progress through the sales cycle i.e. they don’t persuade the reader enough to progress to the next stage whether that’s submitting a sales query or making a purchase.

So how have you determined the value of your website? Have you only taken into account its cost to build and maintain or have also considered what it actually does for you and the value it adds to your business? Ask yourself this question, if you were to put your website up for sale, how would you convince a potential buyer that it was worth the asking price? Would you sell it on the basis of how much it cost to build or on the strength of the benefits it brings?

Do you think owners of expensive luxury cars are motivated by how much they cost to build, run and service or because of things like the prestige they give the owner, the superior performance and higher levels of comfort? In this context, it may be easier to recognise value and worth, but when it comes to your website can you do the same? If your website provides you with no measurable benefits or is a tree in a lonely forest then how can you be sure it’s worth anything?

Suppose we’re comparing two very different websites; one cost $10,000 to build, looks very impressive, but converts poorly, generates little interest and the other cost $1,000 to build, wouldn’t win any design contests, but consistently generates fresh leads and converts a high percentage of prospects into customers. Which of these websites do you think is worth more?

Now ask yourself again, what’s the value of your website?

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Given the current state of the economy, most companies are looking for ways to cut costs and still obtain new business. To do so, that requires careful thought in how to allocate a limited marketing budget so that the items your company invests in generate the most bang for the buck.

The best marketing investment your company can make in 2009 is in its own web site. More specifically, focus on activities that improve your site’s position on the major search engines to drive traffic and leads to your company. The economy may have slowed down, but it hasn’t come to a halt. There are customers out there – you just have to get your company in a position to be found by them.

Google is the 800 lb. gorilla in search with about 65% market share. Search engines as a whole are the most efficient way to reach your target audience. More than 80% of Internet users say they use a search engine to look for products and services. And more than 90% say they’ll go no further than the first 3 pages of a search to find what they’re looking for before changing the keywords. If your site is not showing up on the first 3 pages of Google for important keywords to your industry, then you’re missing out on a significant amount of potential new business.

To help you plan your 2009 marketing activities, here are some specific ideas for improving your site’s position on Google:

Search Engine Optimization:   Making sure your site is performing on the keywords that prospects are searching for is critical. If your site has not been optimized, then it likely is not performing on Google. Keyword Research: Search Engine Optimization starts with identifying the keywords Internet users in your industry would use to find you.  This process helps to prioritize what type of content your site should focus on; if there are many terms that describe your business, a keyword research report will help determine which ones are the most important for driving the most traffic to your site. CSS: If it’s been a while since your site was built, it likely would benefit from re-programming in CSS.   CSS, aka Cascading Style Sheets, allows graphic design parameters of a site (fonts, colors, graphics, etc.) to be coded separately from the content. This flattened programming structure helps search engine robots to get to your content more quickly. CSS also enables one to order the content so that search engines are indexing the most important content first. XML Site Map: This is different from the site map on your web site. An XML site map is a file on your server that gives Google and Yahoo indexing instructions, i.e. which pages to index, how often, alerts them to new content, etc. Google Analytics: This traffic-reporting system won’t directly impact your performance on Google, but it will help you track your site’s performance and provide good information for devising a search engine optimization strategy. New Content: Identifying and creating new web site content that establishes your company as an expert in its industry is well worth the effort. Search engines rank technical and educational material much higher than standard sales information. Topics like technical data sheets, industry glossaries, explanations of technical processes, instructional videos and product photos (with captions) are all highly valued search engine bait because the search engines believe this type of content will be of significant interest to your potential customers. In-bound Links: One of the important factors considered by search engines when ranking competing sites is the number and quality of incoming links to each site. The more quality sites that link to you the more important your site is perceived to be by the search engines. Good links to get include those from industry associations, trade publications and business directories. Posting news releases and articles on third-party sites also provides an avenue for incoming links.   

The best reason to invest in these areas is that each of these projects will benefit your company long after the expenditure through increased visibility on the search engines and more site traffic.

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