General

In Terra Nova is an interesting article about potential backlashs about Second Life in 2007 by Ren Reynolds. Points one to three are:

1. It’s all just sex. sex sex sex I tell you
2. It's not just sex, it's prostitution
3. It can be used for hiding / laundering money

Well, guess what? Point 3 already has happened, there are already articles about this possibility in the web. Definitely also worth a read and some of them are just bound to happen sooner or later!

I've found the article "Second Life: Hype vs. Anti-Hype vs. Anti-Anti-Hype" from the midth of December 2006. A very well thought article from Wagner James Au about the recent developments, company side and growth in SL. Definitely worth a read, so not a short one, so take your time! [Update]: Seems the user base grows about 23% per month according to this artice based on numbers bei Philip Linden.

Here is an interesting article from a marketing company named "Online Communities are not virtual", describing some prejudices of them and how they really are. Definitely worth a read, especially if you want to do business in them!

Here is an interesting read about the average power consumption of an avatar per anno (German only). When you take in count the about 4000 servers used for running the grid, the computers used to control the avatars and coolant systems in the data center of LL one avatar consumed about ca. 1752 KWh per anno. The average power consumption of an inhabitant from Brazil seems to be 1884 KWh. So what should we do with these measures? Nick at them, it is an interesting number, but meaningless all the way for all other except LL, who has to pay the energy bill for its datacenters.