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Second Life is a global phenomenon. Reuters estimates that only 31.2% of active Second Life users are U.S. residents. The majority of active users (more than 54%) are from Europe. Second Life usage is so pervasive in Korea, for example, that it is beginning to impact the country’s social agenda, according to virtual world expert Edward Castronova.

In a recent interview for National Public Radio Weekend Edition (www.npr.org, Feb. 9, 08), Bloomfield described the basics of the Second Life economy and the real financial losses from the recent Second Life banking crisis. (The currency used for economic transactions in Second Life is called Linden Dollars. Linden Dollars can be exchanged for real U.S. dollars at a rate of approximately 260-to-1. Last year, Linden Lab banned online gambling operations that had become popular in Second Life. Early this year, Linden Lab banned unregulated banking operations in Second Life because several banks were reneging on unsustainable high interest rates on deposits.) Bloomfield attributes his initial interest in Second Life to its potential use as an economic simulator in which reactions to new financial regulations could be studied by FASB.

Professor Steven Hornik, of the University of Central Florida, is another accounting professor exploring accounting education applications. He created a Second Life location called Really Engaging Accounting and maintains a blog about his efforts at www.mydebitcredit.com. In his financial accounting course, he uses the social networking capabilities of Second Life and interactive 3-D objects that he creates. The objects demonstrate basic accounting principles. One simulates the effect of transactions on the basic accounting equation. Another simulates the use of T-accounts to record changes to account balances. Students use their avatars to manipulate the models. Videos of his Second Life creations are available on YouTube (search “second life accounting”).

SUMMARY Second Life is an immersive and engaging 3-D virtual world with economic implications and opportunities for the real world. CPA Island is the current center of the public accounting profession in Second Life, but this won’t be the case for long as other CPA firms choose to use it as a tool for meeting, connecting, sharing and collaborating with others. Where business activity goes, it seems certain that CPAs will follow.

Lively keeps things simple and does those simple things well. The television in our sample room is playing the trailer for Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. A few clicks is all that is required to link a YouTube video to a television object -- but as far as we know, no other embedded video formats are supported.

All content that is currently in Lively is made by Google-approved developers, and is presently free -- though it looks very much like the majority of content in Lively will be pay-for before long.

If you want to interact with an object (sitting down, for example), single left click on the object. If you want to play an animation, single left click on your avatar, and select an item from the animations tab (different lists of animations are available depending on whether you are sitting or standing). And ... that's actually about it. Lively is simple, and straightforward, and focuses on doing one thing well: The furnishable 3D chatroom. It can be embedded on a webpage and your avatar can be in multiple rooms at once via different browser windows or tabs. If you've got a group of up to 20 people (who all have Google accounts and are running Windows), and want to share a Youtube video or sit around and shoot the breeze in a lightweight space, and having your own content isn't for you, then Lively is for you.

But a rival to Second Life? No more so than corn syrup is a rival for sea salt.