If you're thinking about using Second Life to meet people, you might be interested in the Eduserv Foundation's recent experience.

It decided to hold a discussion in Second Life as a follow up to its 'Virtual worlds, real learning' symposium held there earlier in the year.

Art Fosset (his Second Life name) had been working hard on a meeting management scheme involving chairs that turn from red, to amber to green in response to a delegate's wish to speak. Participants indicate their desire to contribute by raising their virtual hands.

The idea is probably a good one in certain contexts, but a meeting of thirty to forty interested and engaged adults probably wasn't one of them. The pace was leaden. Realising things weren't going to plan, Fosset disabled the digital chairman after 19 minutes and the remaining 65 minutes went at a fair old lick.

To give an idea of Second Life discussion speeds, during the chaired session each typed word averaged 1.9 seconds. When the brakes came off they averaged 0.8 seconds. Interestingly, the average word count per contribution dropped from 16.5 to 11.

I'm sure that Fosset will do a thorough analysis of the whys and wherefores but it was, without question, an interesting experiment.

As far as content was concerned, the conversation roamed around the appropriateness of Second Life to teaching and learning. If you're interested, you can read the full transcript online.

People came from IBM, from Nature, from Eduserv, of course, from universities, from Linden Lab (creator of Second Life) and even a British Embassy. The profiles of some were, irritatingly, blank which made weighing their contributions difficult.

Even though the conversation was slow by face to face standards, when you take into account the enormous costs, time and inconvenience of getting such an interesting group together, the result was definitely worthwhile. Without question, some of the participants will maintain their connections outside of Second Life.