With the influx of new people into Second Life thanks to the Down the Rabbit Hole episode of CSI NY this was a good time to be talking to Suzy Miller about moving into a virtual realm. It's not a new topic.
Of course I got to finances, as things always seem to. Truth be told not many people can afford the time to spend hours helping us create our Second Life presences for goodwill alone - so many of us do it ourselves and go through multiple incarnations before we get it even close to what we want. It's not a pretty process.
Others with more cash than time hire consultants to create a look for them. Large companies often designate someone in the workplace to help create an avatar that will represent employees in the 3-d world.
As in other things, often you get what you put into it
In this case it could be either time or money. On the other hand someone
who has not experienced showing up at a SL meeting
in a noobie avatar like the one above is not spending 10 hours poking around for the right look or paying mucho dollars to get help with
their biz presence unless they are uber savvy
Makes basic sense that they wouldn't.
So where does that put us?
Pretty much everyone who uses Second Life to meet contacts, or to do
business should put some money into going beyond the plastic looking cartoon
figure SL's creators at Linden Labs gives us to start with.
Whether you do it yourself or have someone else help, my position is that putting $25 into the
account of the avatar you're creating is not asking for a huge investment. You spend that much for music.
For that you can get outfitted with a natural looking skin, hair,
and clothing with detail. The goal is to look more than a few days old in Second Life
time - but not like a hooker. It's a Second Life issue on which credibility
balances. Residents know what I mean and new participants will soon notice.
After depositing some funds in your avatar's account you'll spend it over the first couple days or weeks in small amounts, making payments through Second Life to real people who have set up Second Life businesses designing everything from eyes to handbags.
We kan haz freebeez?
Yes there are freebies. And freebies are often even available from skilled designers as samples or gifts. That said, most freebies offered to newcomers are old items pulled from shelves as designers developed better skills.
So for the most part I participate in the economy of Second Life, relying on freebies only from sources I know and trust.
I gotta tell you - I don't need to have to go through twenty free outfits in my files to find the one that doesn't show excess skin when I walk, has problems I don't know about until they happen in public, or just looks generally funky.
Your dollars keep the economy happy
Why do I think spending money is important? Part of it is because this flow from unskilled users like us who don't know how to make our own digital skirts to those who do keeps a lively economy going and for the most part none of us are out a lot of money.
The sellers' income consists of a fraction of a dollar at a time - paid in bits called Linden Dollars (with an exchange rate of about $250 Lindens to $1US) - from many residents around the digital world.
Not that there are not upscale options available.
For the more particular there are special avatar creators and a
photo-realistic image of a real-life face can be created. And I really like the swishy *moves with you* kind of realistic hair that author Marti Lawrence (that's her here) sports that does normally mean a little larger investment.
Pretty much what happens is that folks figure out Second Life provides great way to attend meetings, classes, conferences etc and that's when they begin to really appreciate the
value on looking better than average. They want to appear like someone you'd like to do business with.
And some never see
There are people however who either can't or don't see the
differences in an upgraded model over the basic cartoon character. I
can only tell them that other people see it, and leave it at that. In
other words I can what I can do to illustrate, but people will see what
they are capable of seeing. If they are happy with freebies we can be
happy for them and encourage them to enjoy the virtual world in the way that works best for them.
Before you feel uncomfortable asking, yes I do put together avatars for others. Normally it's for people that I know, or blog readers or as a favor for
others who really are not able to do it
themselves either because of time, interest (or they know I can do it quicker and they'd rather have it done for them)
I do the basic steps of creating a female avatar based on a real person for $95. It's not something I advertise but I don't mind doing it if it will encourage folks to participate.
And then there were men
For the record I have only created one male avatar as a gift for my
husband who is totally in snooze mode about Second Life in general.
This is only good in that I haven't had the need to go back and upgrade
my guy-making skills or learn about add-on body parts.
My daughter however is looking to pick up some work while in college
so I'm going to try to throw some money her way and rope her into creating a male,
hoping in the future I can ask her to produce men on demand - which
would be a very handy trick to be able to pull off.
Yesterday I paused at the top of the stairs. In my arms were my laptop and camera cables. 
Maybe the fall shook some brain chemistry into place but however it happened other connections started to occur to me including that what happens every day seems more and more a corollary for life in general. 
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