Second Life is alive and well at ETH Zurich. In June, the Architecture Department showed the way with “Introduction to an Open Workspace”. It was the result of a semester-long project by architecture students. The aim of the project was to give an idea of how a “Second ETH Zurich” could look. It did.

The project also set off lively discussion about Second Life and ETH Zurich. The coming months will show if this experiment will be continued to create an official subsidiary of ETH Zurich in a virtual world.

Depending upon one’s inclination, Second Life is really a micro economy*: a platform for building relationships, customer loyalty and brand recognition. It is also a virtual world in which, if the media hype surrounding an alleged 40,000 thousand** players is to believed, offers freedom from the boundaries inflicted by First Life – also known as reality.

In essence, the power of Second Life springs from the imagination of the players. That is why Dr. Michele De Lorenzi of ETH Zurich’s Information and Communications Technology Commission (ICT-Kommission) found the architecture students’ image of ETH Zurich as a piece of cheese especially innovative. Certainly, it contrasted with the realistic buildings that many other universities used to represent themselves in Second Life.

Dr. De Lorenzi took part in the host-panel that included Professor of Architecture and Urban Development Cees Christaanse. Later, Dr. De Lorenzi summed up the project and looked to the future of Second Life.

Three years ago, you assessed Second Life to determine its suitability for ETH Zurich. What were your findings?

I studied Second Life as part of the technology exploration process of ETH World and was amazed at the possibilities offered by the technology: three dimensions and the opportunity for different users to meet and interact in the same space. Second Life offers endless possibilities to create something new. The difficulty is in finding specific topics on which to focus, which was also the biggest challenge for the architecture students.

Professor Christaanse was unapologetic in his view that Second Life is “complete nonsense” with nothing much to do with space or reality. What do you think?

The answer to this question turns on personal opinion. A good many Second Life discussions center on the name itself: is it really a second life or just a bad copy of life as we know it? And is there a boundary between this life and the virtual one? Everyone must decide for himself what constitutes reality. Interacting with other people in a three-dimensional world represented on a computer screen can be very real.

What can Second Life offer ETH Zurich besides fun and an enriched social life?

I'm not a heavy user of Second Life. Still, my social contacts have increased a lot through this technology. People in these virtual worlds are very positive and open to communication. 43 per cent of Second Life users are women - a strong index for the social aspect of the medium. And the average age of Second Life users is 33; so it is not just a game for kids.

This aside though, there are many possible uses for a technology such as Second Life at ETH Zurich. Scattered research groups unable to meet on-site can meet in Second Life to discuss a project. This summer Second Life will support voice, making group discussion easier as it will facilitate audio and video conferences.

Recently I gave a simultaneous presentation in Thun, BE to100 people, and in Second Life to 15 people. A video of my speech was streamed live in Second Life at the same time that a video of the participants in Second Life was projected in Thun. Part of the presentation was given by someone who was physically at ETH Zurich but who was represented by his avatar. It sounds very complex, but when you participate in such a conference it all looks quite natural.

The Lehr-Zentrum identified another application for Second Life. Last year we had a truck that toured high schools all around Switzerland with an exhibition on ETH Zurich. Now that the exhibition has been dismantled, we could rebuild part of it in Second Life. Then interested high school students would be able to visit this virtual exhibition.

How can Second Life be applied to chemistry, physics and mathematics?

All of these disciplines have very important three-dimensional components. I can imagine building different replicas of 3-D objects in the virtual ETH Zurich. Students then could explore and interact with these objects.

Enthusiasts are convinced that Second Life is on the verge of an enormous boom in computing, in the same way that the Internet took off 10 to 12 years ago. What do you think?

The trend is not about Second Life, but about a three-dimensional Internet (3Di). Therefore, it is 3Di, not Second Life, that will mirror the growth path of the Internet

Consider the technological innovations of the Internet. At first they were just about publishing, accessing and finding information. Web 2.0 has enabled all Internet users to publish information and to cooperate in creating something new; blogs and Wikis are examples of these technologies that have in turn led to Wikipedia and YouTube.

The next step will be the 3Di, which will enable users to see each other online. Imagine Google Earth with the possibility to zoom-in to a building, and use an avatar to enter the building and interact with people there. In this context Second Life is just one possible (very successful) product from a company in the United States.

In the early days of the Internet, there were one or two dominant browsers. Now there are many. Will there be competitive virtual worlds as well?

There are already. And there will be more competitive virtual worlds because every person is searching for something different, and that search is dependent on the age and actual interests of the person. The challenge of the next few years will be to introduce some standardization among these worlds. With my avatar, Neptun Everett, for example, it would great to be able to visit different worlds.

* Between 20’000 and 40'000 users are online at any one time. The estimated number of active users of Second Life is about one million.

** Newsweek reports that the booming Second Life economy has 2.6 billion dollars in circulation – the equivalent of $9.8 million.

Second Life’s Funny Money (Newseek 2July 2007/9 July 2007).