“The world of Second Life continues to rapidly expand and evolve. Since its introduction in June 2003, residents have built businesses, designed wild vehicles, and introduced adventure games, all within the same digital world. In our latest update the focus is on making Second Life easier to use. We’ve improved the interface, made it easy to acquire virtual land through auctions to make sure everyone has an equal chance to buy, given free allocations of land to our Premium residents, and introduced a new one-time Basic Access option with no monthly fees,” said Philip Rosedale. “We’re also very excited to welcome Macintosh users to test-drive the Beta, as Second Life takes full advantage of the speed and power of the latest Mac systems, and offers amazing capabilities that we think will delight the creativity of the Mac Community.”

With Second Life v1.2, you will be able to:

• Visit and then buy newly-created virtual land at auction, using either real or in-world currency;
• Receive an allocation of land free of monthly use fees and a regular weekly grant of in-world currency with Premium level subscriptions;
• Receive in-world currency bonuses for visitor traffic, for high reputation in appearance, behavior, or building skills, and for success in running in-world events;
• Enjoy an improved chat system, including easy-to-use gestures and emotes.