The Story of My “Second Life”

Thanks to an email tip from my landlord Fleet Goldenberg this morning, I stopped over toe SecondLifeGrid.net to see what Linden Lab is up to. At first I was confused, but it’s obvious now that SecondLifeGrid.net is a essentially clearinghouse dedicated to helping organizations, public agencies, educational institutions, groups (anyone really) get started with a presence in Second Life. Putting all this content in one place allows Linden Lab to focus SecondLife.com to focus on the PRODUCT ITSELF, the viewer, the program you download. SecondLifeGrid.net is where you go, first presumably, to understand the potential, see what other organizations are doing, and connect with others.

Naturally, the moment the menus loaded, I made a digital bee-line for the Education & Training section under “How Organizations Use The Second Life Grid” on the left menu. It was GREAT to see the blurb about Peggy Sheehy’s Suffern Middle School project, Ramapo Islands. GO, PEGGY!!! I had the pleasure of spending a good bit of SLCC with Peggy attending sessions, meeting people, eating outrageously priced meals in downtown Chicago, etc. It is wonderful to see Peggy’s program continue to build its reputation globally and I’m honored to be considered a volunteer there. (I’ve got the t-shirt to prove it, LOL)

SecondLifeGrid.net is clearly still under construction, the Mailing Lists page is 404 at the moment, and some links (like the Knowledgebase Support Center) go directly back to SecondLife.com, but that’s okay. As Philip Rosedale explained at SLCC, if they waited for something to be truly finished before launching it, they would never get a product off the ground.

What I like most about SecondLifeGrid.net is that it presents a tidy, central, professional repository of information for anyone interested in promoting the use of Second Life in their organization. While there are plenty of resources not listed – the number of YouTube videos about Second Life continues to grow – but I think it makes sense to highlight a few of the best on the site.

It’s worth keeping an eye on SecondLifeGrid.net, they clearly are only just getting started!

-kj-