Second Life: Practice Interview

Assignment 10

Below is the practice interview that I conducted on January 18, 2008, with my contact member from the group of practice that I am observing. The interview took place at his home located on the group’s sim.

[13:56] Eli Tyson: What attracted you to Second Life?
[13:57] Interviewee: well … I actually came here when my roomie pointed out that this would be a great place to promote my music (I’m a recording artist)
[13:58] Eli Tyson: How long have you been an active participant?
[13:58] Interviewee: Since Oct 2006
[13:59] Eli Tyson: Tell me about your involvement in SL.
[14:04] Interviewee: Well, there are so many layers to an SL experience. Socially, I’m involved in many groups and organizations, and try to make friends whenever possible. It’s truly a great way to meet people, and often with the potential of carrying it over into real life. I’m also involved in many ‘professional’ organizations, including music distribution, filmmaking, theatre, and live performance. Also, I run a few businesses in SL (nightclub, stores) and I co-own and manage an LGBT lakeside community sim.
[14:05] Eli Tyson: Can you tell me about your sim/group.
[14:10] Interviewee: My sim is an LGBT lakeside community. Aside from offering rental housing within our community, we run a lot of events (like ‘Forestwood Squares’ and ‘Woodland Feud’ to name a few). One of the sim owners is a master scripter, which affords us the luxury of designing whatever our imaginations can concoct. We’re aiming to develop a safe, fun, relaxing and entertaining area for gay people and transgendered, and we’re hoping to expand our operations to eventually include another 8 sims surrounding this one…to make one of the largest and most comprehensive LGBT areas in SL.
[14:11] Eli Tyson: What made you want to start your sim/group?
[14:15] Interviewee: Well, when the voice feature came into SL (enabling the user to actually talk and listen to others talk within world, as an option to typing) a friend of ours opened a ‘gay voice beach’ but was unable to maintain it at that time…so…we had a fair amount of land and decided to take it over, moving it to our sim. We changed a few things and made it our own. The whole idea was provide gay and transgendered people an optional ‘voice enabled’ hangout, as many of the popular gay sims were not offering that feature (some out of reverence for the hearing-impaired).
[14:16] Eli Tyson: In general, who are the most active participants of this area?
[14:19] Interviewee: Well, in addition to a long list of regulars that migrated over from ‘gay voice beach’, we also many of the regulars from my club (which conveniently hangs in the sky 700M above the sim). We also have a steady influx of new arrivals, as word spreads. I would say on average 30% of our traffic is new arrivals.
[14:19] Eli Tyson: What are the busiest times here at this area?
[14:22] Interviewee: Our busiest time is after 8 pm central time.
[14:22] Interviewee: Traffic slows down by around 3 am
[14:23] Eli Tyson: How does the time of day change the activities?
[14:24] Interviewee: We usually run events on weekends during the day, when most people are free to participate.
[14:26] Eli Tyson: You mentioned earlier some of the events you offer here, can you tell me about any other kinds of activities and events offer?
[14:30] Interviewee: Well we try to offer the most unique activities and events here. Having the master scripter here enables us to explore a lot of possibilities (like building elaborate scripted sets with impressive functionality, such as the Forestwood Squares set). At Halloween, we turned the entire sim into an eerie haunted set, made up an elaborate back-story about a serial killer, and had him chase and slaughter every avatar on the sim until one was left, who won a cash prize. We try to keep it as fresh as possible, as so many sims seem to be running generic events.
[14:31] Eli Tyson: If so, are your events successful (What is your turn out)?
[14:32] Interviewee: We have been very fortunate so far. People are always very intrigued by our events and turn out in numbers. We usually either fill the sim to capacity or crash it trying.
[14:33] Eli Tyson: I see that you offer land for members to rent. What does it cost to rent land from this area?
[14:35] Interviewee: Rental units here range from 2000L per month (for a standard unit) to 3500L per month (for the luxury units). We also offer land rental for those seeking larger areas they can customize.
[14:35] Eli Tyson: How many people are renting currently?
[14:36] Interviewee: As of yesterday, our rental units are full, and a waiting list has begun.
[14:36] Eli Tyson: Is owning this land profitable?
[14:38] Interviewee: Yes. If one decides to purchase a sim, having businesses on it or rental housing can actually lead to the sim paying for itself and turning a profit.
[14:38] Eli Tyson: Overall, do you think that you are successful in what you have accomplished in Second Life (with all your endeavors, including your sim/group)?
[14:41] Interviewee: Yes. Actually I’m quite surprised and appreciative of the successes I’ve managed in SL. It has surpassed any pre-conceived expectations I had, and I look forward to the future.