Accrington Web - Get A Second Life

I wasn’t planning to spend anything at all until I have thoroughly sussed it out entwisi and even then maybe only $9.95 (less than a fiver) as a one off membership fee for Additional Basic membership.

The site currency is the “Lindex” and the exchange rate is approximately L$250 to the US dollar.

As a First Basic member you can customise your Avatar, get a sign up bonus of L$250, and have building opportunities. There does not appear to be any advantage in becoming an Additional member. However to be able to take part in everything you will need to become a Premium member for a monthly fee of $9.95 with reductions for quarterly ($7.50pm) or annual ($6.00pm) membership. But you do get L$1,000 as a sign up bonus and a weekly stipend of L$300. In two months you will get $4 sign up plus $1.20 for 9 weeks. A total of $14.80 worth of Lindex so in effect you get the first month and a half for free and then pay through the nose thereafter.

It sounds like a nice little earner for the site owner.

Second Life is compatible with a Windows 2000/XP driven PC or a Mac with OS X.

However I joined. I was obliged to enter my first name (real or otherwise) and select a second name from the lengthy list. I chose Grizot. I had to input my birthdate and email address.

The next step was to choose my Avatar from the dozen examples, although I could skip this step. I skipped and was taken to a page to reveal my true identity, password etc and input a security code. The code is far from clear and it took several attempts before I got it right.

The next step was to select either a credit card or PayPal in order to qualify for the bonus of L$250. You can skip this step but you lose the bonus. If you select PayPal you are taken to PayPal for your details to be registered with Second Life. I chose Credit Card because my PayPal account is all but empty so to spend via them it would fall to my Credit Card anyway.

Whilst completing the CC details a welcoming email arrived from Second Life and contained “If you haven't yet done so, be sure to download and install the Second Life client software.” I wonder what that is all about?

The next page invited me to upgrade to Premium but I skipped this step and arrived at a page that suggested that I download and install Second Life Client. No download link but then there is one in the welcoming email. The 23 MB setup.exe file took less than 2 minutes on my Broadband. I will install it later.

The page also burbled on about referring friends. As an incentive to do so you will get L$2,500 ($10 US) for every person that you refer AND s/he becomes a Premium member. A link to the referral form is conveniently to hand.

That’s it for now. Time for a brew before I log in and start to sort out my Avatar.

There is a teen Second Life at http://teen.secondlife.com/ for those under the age of 18. All paedophiles please form an orderly queue.