American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists

PRESS RELEASE

Portland, OR - October 25, 2007 - This week, AAPH opened a virtual conference center in the new, 3D Virtual Environment known as Second Life. Presently boasting over ten million members and an active economy of over $1 million US dollars spent in-world every day, the virtual world created by San Francisco based Linden Labs can be used for virtual meetings, online classes, exploration, entertainment and events such as live music concerts, art gallery shows, and gaming. Education is one of the main areas of development and interest for the technology.

Users of Second Life each have a digital version of themselves called an Avatar. You can customize your avatar with different body shapes, hair color and styles, clothing and accessories. You also get to choose your Avatar's name. Avatars can meet in-world and chat via text, Skype, or the new in-world voice conversations, view videos or listen to music and audio feeds, use white boards as well as build devices, vehicles and buildings and much more.

Our technical staff has been watching Second Life develop over the last three years, and they report that it is a technology that will gain mainstream acceptance. "In five to ten years, the 'new web' will be this kind of 3D, virtual-world kind of technology and experience," says Katin Imes, Directory of Technology for AAPH since 2001. He also cautions new users about the present complexities of the technology:

"Second Life is a very exciting technology and presents an impressive list of participants. MIT, Columbia, Harvard, and CSU are among the many universities conducting classes and experimental group learning sessions in Second Life. Major corporations are holding meetings, conferences and virtual stores in Second Life. Names include IBM, BMW, American Apparel, Reebok, Sun, Sony and many others. However, you must remember that this is a technology still early in its overall development. The interface and controls can feel sluggish and klunky at times. The system goes off-line relatively often, so it isn't quite reliable enough yet for critical, scheduled business meetings. Additionally, there are in-world quirks and malfunctions that can be quite frustrating for some users. Just learning to use the virtual world and operate your avatar can take upwards of five to nine hours of learning and practice."

"At the same time, we can see this technology will be a main component of business and learning in the not-too-distant future. Just as we had to learn email as a general business skill, it won't be long before we will be expected to have virtual-reality navigation skills for world-wide business meetings, virtual product design and demos, lectures and presentations, and on-the-job education."

AAPH Virtual Conference Center in Second Life

AAPH has built a virtual building in Second Life that offers an in-world classroom, two open meeting areas, a roof-top cafe and meditation area, and a small-stage event center.

"We are pleased to offer this virtual meeting space to our membership for their use, be it learning, teaching, meeting new clients. It's a good place for meeting other AAPH members and other Second Life users that are interested in hypnotherapy. We expect that the adoption rate for this technology among our members will be slow and small at first, but with ten million users already in Second Life, it won't be long until it will be considered a serious new market space for services and digital media about hypnotherapy."

Second Life accounts are free, and the virtual world offers several hours of experiential tutorials on "Orientation Island" to get new users accustomed to the controls. Basic clothes and accessories are free, but premium accessories cost Linden Dollars, which can be purchased with US Dollars. A premium account is also offered at $9.95/month, which allows you to own virtual land in-world and gives you 300 free Linden Dollars each week.

"We're pleased to give members not only a nice resource center in these new virtual worlds, but also give them a reason to jump into learning the new technology," says Imes. "And, I'm happy to help out new Avatars anytime I can - look for my Avatar in-world by the name of Kalisten VanDornan. I'll show you some handy tricks in world, and give you some handy items as well."

The AAPH Virtual building and event center is in-world at:
Monty (77,184,68)

If you want to sign up for a Second Life account and give AAPH a few free Linden Dollars while you are at it, use this link to create a free Second Life account.

Second Life:
http://www.secondlife.com/

Companies in Second Life
http://slbusinesscommunicators.pbwiki.com/Companies+in+Second+Life

Business Week article on businesses in Second Life:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2006/tc20061017_127435...

Wikipedia entry on Second Life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

The American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a professional organization that supports certified hypnotherapists in business development, marketing, continuing education and industry development for hypnotherapists worldwide. The AAPH publishes the Journal of the American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists, "Hypnotherapy Today," and has a web site at http://www.aaph.org.