Virtual world, backed by eBay and Amazon execs, has more than two million residents

So I show up, first time in the place, and this fox is speaking to me.

Not talking here about the way-old-school slang for a beautiful woman but something closer to Animal Planet than the Playboy Channel. Bushy tail. Canine features. The works.

Can't remember exactly what the conversation was -- a mere exchange of passing pleasantries before it walked off -- but the whole thing left an unsettling feeling, like this could really get weird. Like I'd fallen through the looking glass and Alice definitely wasn't living here anymore.

That's because it was my first foray into Second Life, the buzzed-about and controversial online role-playing and social-networking site that's being hailed as the next YouTube, the next thing to bedazzle the tech-savvy and befuddle the technophobes.

Sort of a combination of My Space, The Sims and Monopoly with the three-dimensional touch of Star Trek's holodecks and the videogame World of Warcraft, Second Life is not a competitive pursuit -- even though it's technically what's called a "massively multiplayer online game" -- as much as an alternative state.

Users choose a fictional name and create an avatar, an animated version of themselves that can walk, run and dance, and then are dropped into a landscape where they interact with others' avatars, including those of real-life friends who are also "in world," buy or sell Second Life land, set up businesses, build houses, buy clothes, work a job, go bar-hopping, make art and, yes, even some NC-17 activities. It's free to join but potentially expensive -- in the site's made-up Linden dollars or in real currency -- if you want a super kickin' SL lifestyle. Just like real life.

And if that doesn't sound all that much different from everyone's first life, it's their life buffed to perfection.

You can be whomever -- or whatever -- you want. You can fly. You can teleport. No taxes. No politicians. No war. No terror. No War on Terror.

But there is plenty of hype.

Hatched in 2000 by a San Francisco company called Linden Lab, which didn't make the site publicly accessible until 2003, Second Life includes eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar and Amazon pioneer Jeffrey Bezos as backers.

Major companies and organizations -- from Dell and MTV to the American Cancer Society -- are flocking to the site to set up "islands," worlds within the world dedicated to their products.

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Sun Microsystems have held press conferences in Second Life. Reuters news agency even has a reporter "embedded" in Second Life full time.

Although most of the site's 2 million-plus residents conduct their commerce in Linden dollars, some are raking in real money. Last fall, Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale estimated that $1.5 million (in actual currency) changes hands through Second Life monthly. In November, a German woman named Ailin Graef -- known on the site as Anshe Chung -- reportedly became the site's first real-life millionaire, buying and selling Second Life real estate.

Second Life is the brainstorm of Rosedale, 38, a former chief technology officer at RealNetworks who helped develop the streaming technology that is the lifeblood of Second Life.

"He had a great idea: to create a collaborative online space where people could do things together," says Linden Lab marketing director Catherine Smith. "I don't think anyone knew how it would evolve."

"There are a lot of smart, creative people in Second Life," says reporter Adam Pasick, dubbed "the Reuters Second Life bureau chief" who has been stationed in-world since October. "Some are there to start a business, some are here to create art or write software, and some are in it for purely the social nature."

Article from "The Towerlight"