SECOND LIFE OFFICIALLY OPENS DIGITAL WORLD TO COLLEGE STUDENTS FOR EXPLORATION AND STUDY OF DESIGN AND SOCIAL COMMUNITIES

Linden Lab Announces "Campus: Second Life" Program for College-Level Classes

Linden Lab, creator of acclaimed 3D digital world Second Life, today announced Campus: Second Life, a program to allow college level classes to use the powerful tools and realistic environment of Second Life as a venue for learning. With a fully physical simulation, robust 3D modeling and scripting tools, and a complete economy and social systems, Second Life provides students with a collaborative framework to experiment in real time with everything from urban planning, to game design, to the formation of social communities.

Campus: Second Life formalizes a program which over the last two years has welcomed classes from schools and areas of study as diverse as the Media Studies Department at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), Trinity University, the University of Buffalo, the Department of Design and Industry at San Francisco State University and the School of Architecture, University of Texas, Austin.

"We’re now formalizing and expanding what has been a successful pilot program, and making it possible for more students to investigate important design and social aspects of digital spaces within the context of Second Life," said Robin Harper, Senior Vice President, Linden Lab. "The enormous flexibility of the underlying systems, including the ability to establish communities and design and create interactive objects and structures, offers these students an unparalleled palette for learning and exploration."

"My students set out to investigate the early development of the resident community within Second Life," said Anne Beamish, Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture , The University of Texas at Austin . "They became residents of the Second Life world, contributing their different skills and testing the limits of the system. They worked together in real time and addressed a variety of issues, including economic structure, social architecture, building density, and traffic patterns. Second Life gave my students a laboratory for testing their ideas that just isn’t readily available anywhere else.”

Campus: Second Life is available for use in college-level coursework including architecture, game design, sociology, design and media studies. Faculty and students can integrate into the existing world community, or work together on unique private “islands”. Linden Lab works closely with faculty to make sure they have the support they need, including complimentary account access and the temporary use of land for their projects. Students are offered complimentary access to Second Life for the duration of their course work, and are then able to take advantage of special pricing to subsequently maintain their online characters and creations within Second Life. Interested faculty should contact Linden Lab (education@lindenlab.com) for further information.

About Linden Lab

Linden Lab was founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale to create a revolutionary new form of shared 3D entertainment. The former CTO of RealNetworks, Rosedale pioneered the development of many of today’s streaming media technologies, including RealVideo. In April 2003, noted software pioneer Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, was named Chairman.

Second Life is a digital world like no other. Residents retain their intellectual property rights in their creations, are able to own and control the land where they live and congregate, are starting businesses that are paying off in real world income, and have the freedom to shape the future of their digital reality. Second Life is currently growing explosively at more than 20% per month.

Based in San Francisco , Linden Lab employs a senior team bringing together deep expertise in physics, 3D graphics and networking. Team members have previously worked for market leading companies such as Electronic Arts, Maxis, Disney, THQ, Acclaim, Hasbro, Mattel and RealNetworks.

Note to editors: Second Life® and Linden Lab® are registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.