MarketMinutesofSecondLife

The Money matters: Second Life vs. First Life

Rationale: I believe the goal of this project was to take a set of dry data and present it in an interactive and aesthetically pleasing manner that would show correlations, or even lack of correlations. As we researched and showcased interactive info-graphics in our wikispace, we observed the various ways that information can be presented interactively.

For our purposes, Second Life will be represented with the Abbreviation of SL in both the interactive graphic and in the rationale.

Throughout the previous two projects, the information was qualitative. However in this third project, I had to deal with quantitative data and quantitative data in a clear and user friendly manner. I chose to combine the two in the form of a chronological timeline (2006-2007) and graph.

Three sets of quantitative data are shown: The Canadian dollar vs the US dollar, the amount of $US being spent in SL and the amount of hours users are spending on SL. These sets of data can be viewed separately or overlapping eachother. The yellow arrows blink when a user passes over them (to show that they are buttons) and when they are pressed, they will lead to different sets of information. There are three arrows at the start screen.

The size of the circles and hexagons, signifies whether there has been an important event that has happened; the large the size, the greater the impact the event has had on SL. A brief explanation of he events are available as you pass of different sections/dates of the graphic. A highlighted bar also guides the reader's eyes to matching the date with the event.

Research and Process: I began with researching quantitative information about my intended topic, which is the economics of second life. Initially, this research had been kept strictly to data of second life, but it soon expanded to data about real life as well, which would build an interesting correlation against second life.

With the US dollar fluctuating so much at the latter part of last year, I decided it would be interesting to pit the US currency vs Canadian currency, with the amount of US dollar spent in second life and the number of hours that users were logged in.

Information taken from: http://www.x-rates.com/d/CAD/USD/hist2008.html



Information taken from: http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-graphs.php

US dollars spent by users(in millions):

Hours online (in millions):



US dollars Exchanged on the LindeX™ Exchange (in Millions): A more detailed tabled set of information can be found here:

Research of events : 200605 - Linden Lab adjusts their Terms of Service to allow third-party applications to be used in conjunction with second life; libsecondlife, an applications software library, emerges.

200606

200611 - business owners concerned and many shut down shops in fear of their creations being copied - The copybot is a tool that duplicates items and avatars without regard to permission of creator/owner, it was originally created as a debugging tool (by libsecondlife), but unethically appropriated and sold for the purpose of stealing others' creations and causing lag - Second Life bans the use of copybots in the world

200702- Metaverse and WSE merge 200704 - ban on advertising casinos; the beginning of rumours that casinos were to be shut down 200707 - all forms of gambling/wagering banned; resulted in a lack of casino bandwidth lag - Ginko Financial (a second life bank) experiences a bank run; SL users panic and the vast amounts of withdrawals cause the bank to place a cap on withdrawal amount - World stock exchange (second life's virtual stock exchange) is hit with a theft of 3.2 mil L or 12, 300 USD by a former employee (technician of in world ATM machines) 200708 - Ginko bank shuts down, resulting in loss of 200,000, 000 L or 750,000 USD to residents that have invested in the past 3 years; WSE gains a slightly untrustworthy reputation 200709 -armani opens fashion clothing store in SL 200710 - VAT (value added tax, or GST of 15- 25%) charged to European players (40% of SL players). players outraged but continue to play 200712 - Cory Ondrejka, chief of technology officer officially resigns 20080108 - ban of unauthorized in world banks

Finally the information was translated graphically into flash. Each set of information was matched up with the occurring events (to determine the size of the shapes) and the positioning was completed. After everything was set in place, animating it with flash took some time.

From what I have learned from this project, it is crucial to have your graphics set in place before you animate them. If you wish to move one piece of the composition afterwards, you will have to ensure that you have congruence of position of this element at all your key frames, so it will play smoothly (unless you intend for it not to). For example, if you move a button under one key frame, you will need to move it for all your other ones.

 Wireframe: intial: media type="file" key="lindexfram.swf" Introduced colour scheme and general look: media type="file" key="infographic.swf"

Modified Layout and added events: media type="file" key="infographica_version3.swf"

Final: media type="file" key="infographica_version4.swf"  Works Cited "Canadian Dollars to 1 USD." X-Rates.Com. 25 Mar. 2008 . "Economic Statistics: Graphs." Second Life. 20 Mar. 2008. 20 Mar. 2008 . Linden. "Second Life Blog." Second Life. 1 Apr. 2008. 20 Mar. 2008 . Second Life News Center. 26 Mar. 2008 . "Second Life." Wikipedia. 2 Apr. 2008. 28 Mar. 2008 .