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Exploration of a specific area is generally done on foot, but it's just as easy to fly to take in the sights, and a range of vehicles from go-karts to hot air balloons are available, too. Second Life citizens can teleport directly to locations, making transit time across the 31 square miles of virtual land as quick as clicking on a hyperlink.

Although Rosedale prefers to think of Second Life as another country rather than a web application, the land laws governing most of this new terra firma are more lenient than those of their physical counterparts. Land is owned by residents, who set their own rules as to which other residents are allowed on their patch, and how they can behave. Landlords can eject residents or make land inaccessible to the public, but few exercise such rights. Residents are pretty much free to wander where they like, including into other users' virtual boudoirs. This can occasionally cause an uncomfortable moment as accidental voyeurs attempt to extricate themselves from explicit situations (anything goes in Second Life), but generally most activities are above board. You're more likely to wander into the midst of a discussion on politics or philosophy than anything untoward.

What can you do?

You can do almost anything in Second Life, from the mundane to the extraordinary. Thanks to the unrestricted template, anyone can import their idea of entertainment or education to this frontier. "Virtual worlds are already being used for a wide range

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of activities. Marketing and brand promotion is probably still the most obvious use at the moment," explains Reynolds.

"It's not all about marketing and PR, though. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in virtual worlds. Already, people are finding ways to use them for learning, training and rehearsals, visualisation and interaction, and even something as seemingly simple as social connectedness and playful networking," he says.

At the heart of the activities in the online world are Groups, formal social collectives which are dedicated to a range of interests from birthday parties to the American Cancer Society's annual Second Life Relay for Life charity drive. They're great starting points for finding like-minded others, as the publicly accessible Groups Search facility returns all relevant matches, and if there's not already a group dedicated to a particular interest, it's very simple to set one up.

The most successful burgeoning subcultures in the virtual world comprise content creation and performance. This is a rather broad remit; content creation can be anything from city planning to fashion design and movie making. "The explorers and innovators have already spent many months understanding virtual worlds, exploring them and discovering new ways of using them and getting to grips with what it means to inhabit and work in virtual worlds in the same way that the world just about now understands the benefits of living and doing business on the web," says Reynolds.

Real-life musicians are making a splash, too. Performers such as Slim Warrior and The Strangefates stream their offline live performances into in-world music venues, broadening their fanbases across national borders. Dance companies such as the Second Life Ballet and the ZeroG SkyDancers take choreography and movement to new heights - literally - demonstrating pirouettes and acrobatics that would turn Baryshnikov green with envy. Even theatre troupes are getting in on the act. Regular performances are listed on the Events board, available via the Search button.