Second Life—the massively multiplayer online virtual world of islands and avatars, with registered users numbered in the millions—is not without its controversy. Recently Time magazine named Second Life fifth on its list of the five worst Web sites. Of course the fact that Time identified Second Life as a Web site at all casts a long shadow of doubt on the periodical's geek credibility. As Second Life registered users (a.k.a. "residents") know, creating your Second Life (SL) requires a standalone client: Leave your browsers at the door.

Still, the initial flush of gee-whiz media attention that colored SL's first year, has predictably died back a notch or two of late, making room for more cynical, less wide-eyed assessments from publications such as Wired, which last week published a sharply critical piece that highlighted a few early failures among Fortune 500 companies, such as Coca-Cola, that were brave enough to embrace SL very early with some highly experimental marketing initiatives.

But whether or not Second Life turns out to be the kind of place where next-generation consumer product marketing succeeds is completely irrelevant to the millions of residents who have already figured out exactly what Second Life is, incontrovertibly, good for: An intellectual craft fair where distance, nation, and even time can be checked at the door, allowing interest, curiosity, and affinity to lead likeminded people to find one another.

While SL has earned—and somewhat deserves—a reputation as a global hookup lounge, if that's all you've been able to see it as, you're not digging past the first boring layer of virtual crust. Plan your visits strategically and keep your teleporting directed to lands that have focused agendas and you should quickly find that SL unlocks heretofore unseen potential for professional networking, intellectual exchange, and even project recruitment. In short, if you think SL is designed for passive entertainment, you're going to be disappointed. Arrive with direction, passion, and a spirit for collaboration, and the sky is the limit.

Getting the First Mover Advantage
While the types of affinities that SL can facilitate are as far reaching as human imagination, geeks always have the first-mover advantage in software innovations. That means SL is already being used by thousands of developers for everything from day-to-day programming issues to virtual consortiums to specific open source project collaborations.

It would be difficult to argue that any company, except perhaps Second Life creator Linden Labs itself, has done more than IBM to promote the cause of developer collaboration in Second Life. In fact, IBM's interest and investment in Second Life has been swift and aggressive, with company executives citing their vision for so-called "v-business" interaction—the ability for IBM employees, customers, and business partners to communicate and meet "in world" as an alternative to traditional conference calls—as just one compelling reason that IBM will continue to embrace SL as an internal business tool. Already IBM has used SL to conduct virtual meetings and it is planning an in-world IBM alumni convention. And while those uses of SL will continue, for the developerWorks division of IBM, the ideas and opportunities for utilizing SL to support the development community in far broader ways have come fast and furiously.

Jason Clark, a software engineer with the developerWorks group who is also a longtime expert in online game development, likens the SL experience to that of attending a live music concert. "Recording artists … have their product in various forms: CD, MP3, and a stage show—up close and personal. What we have offered in the past as developerWorks' presence is simply a Web presence with content aggregation." While that works fine for a static, recorded experience, with Second Life, he explains, IBM can bring you something far more interactive. "You don't have to come to us; we can come to you."

Clark admits that at this early stage, everything is experimental, but that's part of the point. "We're in the exploratory stages of it," explains Clark, "and looking for the best ways to leverage the Second Life environment. We want to be there during the learning stages while every one else is learning too." IBM has even made headlines recently as the first company to release an internal guideline for employee conduct in SL and other online virtual worlds.

IBM, it seems, is ready and willing to ride out the inevitable ups and downs of this emergent technology, for better or for worse. And since that's exactly the kind of thing that developers do everyday, it's an attitude that many will recognize and appreciate. As we've seen in the past with Linux and open source, when IBM eats the dog food, it doesn't leave any in the bowl.

Big Blue Islands
While IBM has already created a handful of SL locations (known in-world as "islands") that have been created for a variety of internal and external events, the immediate future offers developers two SL initiatives worthy of excitement:

The defining feature of the Rational Codestation is its labyrinth, a corn field-style maze with walls high enough to obscure the view of even the tallest avatar (see Figure 1). Today the labyrinth gives residents a chance to compete by programming bots that complete the maze in head-to-head challenges. Codestation also includes a huge pavilion with kiosks that offer tutorials for building objects of various types in Linden Scripting Language (LSL), the base language for building all things in SL.

Figure 1. Codestation Labyrinth: The virtual walls of the labyrinth in Rational Codestation are over six feet high (well, relative to scale anyway).

While you may not find Linden Script directly relevant to your professional life, IBM says it's simply a first step to a wider array of programming affinities and resources that IBM hopes to get involved in. "What we're doing right now with Codestation is sharing Linden script code and offering a code library, using the labyrinth to compete against one another, but really what we're trying to do is develop community," explains Clark. "At some point it will evolve from Linden Script to other things. Maybe we can do Java things there or share WebSphere code. It's a test case, if you would. We're just using Linden Script for the base case. And we're of course going to make it relevant to people who use IBM products."

Figure 2. Rules of Engagement : The rules for code sharing are posted on a billboard in the kiosk area of Codestation.

Since its launch, Codestation has been a great destination for programmers, but this month, IBM sweetened the experience when it launched the Sentinel 2.0 project. Today, Clark explains, Codestation is just like a puzzle in an MMORPG, except "with code instead of magic." Now IBM is making Codestation even more interactive, adding a backstory and a villain, Double-bad Bugra, who has decimated and dismembered the Codestation sentinels. Players will traverse the labyrinth looking for pieces of these sentinels, using them to update their avatars. When their avatars are strong enough, players can engage Bugra in a fight to the death. (You can watch a fun preview of the Sentinel project on Jason's blog.)

Unlike the Rational Codestation, the developerWorks island is a brand new launch. It will serve as a much-needed first stop for residents who are looking for IBM-sponsored software development resources and community. Anita Mathur, a senior marketing manager for IBM developerWorks, explains that the development of the island will be phased, with hosted events as the primary impetus for the island in the remaining months of 2007, and some more interactive features launching later next year. The island's first pilot customer event, a customer briefing that took place in conjunction with the company's real world Rational Software Developers Conference in June, was deemed a phenomenal success resulting in more than 200 registrations. And, Mathur says, IBM believes that's simply the beginning of what's possible within the face-to-face virtual environs of SL.

"Our objectives are to talk about software development, evangelize IBM software tools and technologies, and work with community," says Mathur. "Whatever you are doing face-to-face in the real world, we can simulate in Second Life virtually, synchronizing our efforts all along. There are a lot of people who cannot attend face-to-face events and this gives them an opportunity and avenue to meet experts and see what we have available by providing opportunities where residents' self expression can thrive. developerWorks would not only like to attract, but engage and motivate, members via innovative collaborative Web offers.

For many developers, she explains, SL obliterates the distance and cost issues related to business travel and gives them an immediate and satisfying collaborative experience, not only with likeminded developers but with knowledgeable IBM experts who are doing relevant work in a wide variety of technical fields.

Going Beyond the Pickup Line
Even within IBM's own islands, there are some things about Second Life that clearly need some time to improve. Both Clark and Mathur concede that one of the biggest challenges facing residents is the so-called "ghost town effect." People show up only to find themselves alone and navigating an eerie, unfamiliar space that is seemingly abandoned. "That's something that all of us are dealing with," Clark explains.

Currently IBM is investigating another idea borrowed from the world of MMORPGs: the artificially intelligent avatar. The idea is to use AI to man an information desk 24/7. "Even if that person isn't real it at least warms up the experience a little bit. Maybe the avatar just tells you what time a real person is going to be there. Or maybe that avatar can answer some questions based on the depth of the question at hand." At a minimum, avatars are one way of addressing the problem and showing people around when they first arrive. But more importantly, Clark says, IBM wants to make the content rich enough so that being the only person around isn't necessarily the buzzkill it is today.

One way to do that is to provide a better bridge between a SL island and more traditional content available on the Web. Mathur says that's already happening: "What we have today is focused events—timed events for people to show up together." When the event ends, she says, IBM offers people relevant related content. "We are encouraging them to come back to the developerWorks Web site and try some downloads, attend Webcasts, sign-up for face to face briefings, and other offers" that they aren't necessarily going to track down on their own. "We are trying to match these two channels up: The real world vs. Second Life mirroring each other. There is a next-step action item to do, which may be in the virtual world or in the face-to-face world."

In the end, it is exactly that type of personal interaction that is fueling the success of Second Life in realms far deeper than its obvious and ignominious applications as a virtual meat market. It's an intellectual exchange without borders; a birds-of-a-feather with a Mardi Gras flare; a "Burning Man" with source code. The moment you relax and stop worrying about whether Second Life will change the world is the moment it will sneak up and change your future.

For Clark, SL delivers a complete feedback loop that has always been missing on the Internet. As a blogger and content lead on the developerWorks Web site, he knows all too well the frustration that publishers feel when they send their content out into the world and then are left to quietly speculate about its success. "You have the opportunity to experience the reactions of people when they view your content," he explains. "When somebody goes to the developerWorks Web site, I have no way of seeing who's at a specific place at a specific time. But in Second Life you are part of the content; you can see what people are viewing and you have immediate response. When people show up for a meeting, we have these off-the-cuff encounters both during and after the meeting. There may be questions that pop up and little factions will break off and they're off on their own talking about those things. On my Web site I don't have that.

"That's the extra realm that Second Life provides."

IBM developerWorks Second Life Offers