In second life one can have a Free 3D Chat (text or voice) from guys around the world, just like an IM and it’s a fun in interactive 3D space and a social web community,
http://secondlife.com/whatis
http://secondlife.com/whatis/3dchat.php
Now the Linden Lab’s has the plans to offer some premium voice call services in Second Life so in the coming times they have some better monetization, it would benefit the residents of Second Life and they would be able to receive the real world voice calls, (in the virtual world), via a service dubbed AvaLine, from the actual world residents, it will connect the virtual world residents to the real world residents via VOIP and normal PSTN phone calls!
Second Life residents will be assigned a phone number which will enable their contacts to make an international call from a landline / mobile / cell phone / or VoIP application, it will not free but will be at price as this is a premium service,
Second life is yet not in the competition with the VOIP leader Skype but may be have Skype in its sights due to monetization plans and their large and increasing ever scale use of voice calling and VOIP calling,
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/05/second-life-embraces-voice.html
Ref.:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2242592/second-life-adds-real-world
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/05/20/over-15-billion-voice-minutes-served
http://voxilla.com/2009/05/20/second-life-real-world-voip-is-part-of-virtual-realitys-allure-1778
http://venturebeat.com/2009/05/19/second-life-generates-15-billion-minutes-in-web-voice-calls-to-date/
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2009/tc20090519_154655.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/voip-in-second-life.asp
