Chip Midnight's female avatar

Chip Midnight is one of the many entrepreneurs taking advantage of Second Life’s economy to earn part of his real-life income. Among the first Residents to design avatar textures, Chip boasts an impressive portfolio of work, including his otherworldly Leafy and Blue Chrome avatar skins, as well as classic nude skins like Summer. While a 3D modeler and animator in real life (his top two clients manufacture equipment for medical research), “the stuff I do in Second Life is a lot more fun,” Chip admitted, smiling.

“The skins sell for L$5000,” he told the Second Opinion, “Which is about US$16 at the current exchange rate. I usually sell one or two a day. But some days as many as four to five.” Not surprisingly, Chip grosses between US$500 and US$2000 each month with his Second Life business. Although as Second Life grows, so does the competition. “After I put my first skins up for sale, within about two months I had about a dozen competitors.”

Chip Midnight owns stores in Freelon and Aqua, where you may spot him sporting his female avatar. She’s a digital diva infused with the sassy poses from an animation override created by Resident Gwinevere Grayson, with looks inspired in part by Angelina “Tomb Raider” Jolie—and Chip confesses—a Persian ex-girlfriend.

Baccara and Mash posted by YadNi Monde

Live moblogging from Second Life! From SLuniverse.com, website of veteran Resident Cristiano Midnight, comes Snapzilla, a Flickr-style repository of Second Life screenshots, uploaded live through the program’s "Postcard" function (which lets Residents send screen captures to anyone through e-mail).

After only a few weeks of operation, more than 3,600 screenshots have been uploaded into Snapzilla—a constantly-updated, day-by-day photojournal of Second Life in all its unpredictable wonder.

Now playing in Second Life:
Your favorite machinima, your student film, or your baby’s first steps.

Watch a movie in SL!

After the release of version 1.6 on March 31, if you can convert it to Quicktime, you can play it in-world. Version 1.6 allows Residents to embed Quicktime movies on their land.

Host "Mystery Science Theater 3000"-style parties or open your own movie house. There’s cause for Residents around the world to rejoice, too: 1.6 comes with international keyboard support, to make communication and interaction in Second Life truly global.

Click here for an advance look at the true avant garde
in-world cinema.