Reality to pixels
A buzzword of the moment is ‘Social Networking’ and the whole Myspace/Facebook/Youtube phenomenon has been aided by the advent of Web 2.0 which has increased the ability for users to interact with the web. This level of interaction has increased to a point where users can be drawn away from reality and live a life within the web. Second Life is a prime example of this where people can now live a life within a virtual environment under the guise of an alter-ego and interact with millions of other users worldwide. Second Life also has its own currency (Linden Dollars) and economy which enables people to set up businesses and run companies within the virtual world culminating with its first real world millionaire in 2006.

“Since its beginning, the web has often been used as a tool to meet new people, but in recent years the interaction between web-users has grown dramatically…”. “The notion of Web 2.0, or an internet model where content is created and shared by users, has given birth to some of the most popular sites the internet has ever seen. So much so, that anybody who is anyone, wants to be part of the online social networking scene.” Taken from the BBC ‘Rise of the web’s social network‘