Product Description

In this fully revised and updated Second Edition, you'll discover the very latest information about living in Second Life—from how to enter the world, get started, and get around, to the many exciting new ways you can earn real-world incomes, meet other residents, and enjoy all there is to do.   Authored by Second Life experts with contributions from Linden Lab employees and Second Life residents, it’s the perfect companion for anyone who wants to create his or her own reality in Second Life. Includes a CD.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58064 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.com
Since "opening" in 2003, Second Life has become an explosive worldwide phenomenon, inhabited by over 5 million virtual residents by 2007. Hit the digital ground running with Second Life: The Official Guide, the ultimate travel reference to this exciting new "metaverse." Get all the information you'll need to create your avatar, navigate the landscape, and build your in-World business to produce real-world profits.

Download Second Life character trading cards (.pdf)

More images from Second Life (click for larger image)

From the Back Cover
Enjoy Your Second Life

This exclusive guide is your official gateway to Second Life, the wildly popular virtual world now inhabited by more than eight million residents. In this fully revised and updated Second Edition, you'll discover the very latest information about living in Second Life—from how to enter the world, get started, and get around, to the many exciting new ways you can earn real-world incomes, meet other residents, and enjoy all there is to do.

Authored by Second Life experts and featuring contributions from Linden Lab employees and Second Life residents from around the world, this is the perfect companion for anyone who wants to create his or her own reality in Second Life. The book includes:

• Avatar appearance: Create your look and find your voice.

• Places to go: Take a grand tour of interesting Second Life locales.

• Things to do: Enjoy the nightlife, the great places to shop, and the rich variety of SL communities.

• People to meet: Who will you be in this wide-open world? Get a taste of the diverse social scene. Meet both famous and infamous residents and read their compelling profiles.

• Start building: Create everything from sandals to spaceships, and beyond, thanks to expanded SL technology tools and tons of helpful tips.

• Scripting basics: Make your projects move, talk, spin, and more-learn scripting directly from the creator of the Linden Scripting Language.

• Create machinima: Learn to storyboard, design, and star in your own productions.

• SL economy: Profit from the thriving SL economy and turn L$ into US$.

Learn how to meet and make friends with people from around the world

Experience Second Life's amazing destinations

Get insider tips for such things as managing your unwieldy inventory

On the CD
The CD provides textures, avatar templates, animation software, more than a hundred sample animations, machinima created in Second Life, and a host of resources to help Second Life residents, builders, scripters, and animators.

About the Author
Michael Rymaszewski is an award-winning author of more than 20 computer books, including Second Life: The Official Guide.

Wagner James Au is a journalist embedded in Second Life and runs the New World Notes blog.

Cory Ondrejka is CTO of Linden Lab and created the Linden Scripting Language.

Richard Platel has been a resident of Second Life and an LSL scripter since before the public beta in 2003.

Sara Van Gorden has built hundreds of things and works for developer Electric Sheep.

Jeannette Cézanne and Paul Cézanne run SecondSeeker.com, a blog that reviews interesting Second Life places and activities.

Benjamin Batstone-Cunningham helped start the Second Life Machinima community while working at Linden Lab. He recently founded Alt-Zoom Studios, a development agency in SL.

Aleks Krotoski is a long-time Second Life resident who writes about emerging community experiences in virtual worlds.

Celebrity Trollop runs Second Style Fashionista, a blog on Second Life fashion.

Jim Rossignol is a writer and editor focused on digital culture.

Customer Reviews

Free guide to Second Life
I think this book is great for learning the basics, for understanding how Second Life works, and for gaining a flavour of what awaits you.

But, as is often pointed out, such guides are very quickly out of date. And what it doesn't give you, is a real insight into what really goes on every day in-world.

For this, you need to check out the free guide to Second Life, The AvaStar (www.the-avastar.com). It's an online newspaper covering the news, business, fashion, travel, entertainment and events of the virtual world, and every week publishes a 'Guide to...' feature, focusing on the best places to go in-world.

If you read through the paper once, you'll immediately gain an excellent understanding as to what is going on in the world. (All the back issues are available to download for free at the website).

Good luck and have fun!

Unneeded
I face this book (and the many others like it) from a different point of view... if you need a book first to find your way around in SL, you better should not be there at all. Every user with a little but of mind will not need it. On this specific title it also annoyed me to see, that knowing second life, I partially see this as a clique of SL veterans celebrating themself... always the same names.
Just go there instead. look around, use your eyes and mind. Look at the menues. Save the money for the book amd use it to settle in SL instead...

Good starter
Very good starter book for the absolute newbie. Really helps to get on and start having fun.