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Second Life (SL) is a privately owned, partly subscription-based 3-D virtual world, made publicly available in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, and founded by former RealNetworks CTO Philip Rosedale. Users can visit this virtual world almost as if it were a real place. They explore, meet new people, participate in individual and group activities, and, if they decide to visit often, they learn new skills and mature socially (in the sense of learning the culture of the virtual world). Though sometimes referred to as a game, Second Life does not have points, scores, winners and losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of a game.

The Second Life "world" is simulated by a large array of servers, known collectively as "the grid," that are owned and maintained by Linden Lab. A Second Life client program provides its users (often referred to as Residents) with tools to view and modify the SL world and participate in its virtual economy. The economy operates as a real free market. Residents buy and sell to one another, and the virtual currency is exchangeable for US$.

As of December 2006, ten to twenty thousand users are in SL at any one time. At 8:05:45 AM PDT, October 18 2006, the number of registered accounts in Second Life reached one million. Eight weeks later, on December 14 2006, this number doubled to two million, and that rapid growth continues. However, there is a difference between registered accounts and unique, returning users. Many accounts are created by users who log in once or a few times and never return, and some regular users have multiple active accounts. One analysis of the economy of Second Life suggests that the number of unique, regular users is around 100,000.

Residents are the users of Second Life, and their appearance is their avatar (often abbreviated to av). A single person may have multiple accounts, and thus appear to be multiple Residents (a person's multiple accounts are referred to as alts). However, the use of additional accounts require the user to register and pay a small fee. Also, a single Resident's appearance in SL can vary dramatically from day to day, as avatars are easily modified.

Main article: Resident (Second Life)

Second Life has its own economy and a currency referred to as Linden Dollars (L$). Residents create new goods and services, and buy and sell them in the Second Life virtual world. There are also currency exchanges where residents can exchange US$ or other real world currencies for L$. These exchanges are open markets, except that Linden Lab sometimes buys or sells Linden dollars to attempt to keep the exchange rate relatively stable. A small percentage of residents derive net incomes from this economy, ranging from a few hundred to several thousand US$ per month, while a larger percentage derive a gross income large enough to offset most of their expenditures in L$.

Premium members can own land (up to 512 m2 without additional fees). Owning larger areas of land incurs an additional fee (which Linden Lab calls "tier") ranging from US$5 a month up to US$295 a month for 65,536m2 of land or individual island. Linden Lab sells land to new residents in small 512 m2 lots (e.g., 16 by 32 meters) through its First Land program. It also sells 16 acre (65536m2) regions. Once they own it, residents may buy and sell their land to other Residents.