I am sorry but I just don't get it

OK. I'm a newbie - no doubt about it - just stepped off the turnip truck.

Soooo... I hear about Second Life and think I'll give it a go. I set up the account, go through the introduction and Help Island OK and then I find ....

nothing... thats what. I teleport around, but where are the people? Where ever I go I find beautiful buildings but rarely any people. Most sites are deserted.

Am I missing something? I feel I must be, given all the good press the site gets - but at the moment I must admit I don't see the attraction.

No this is not a troll. I really do want to hear some advice on things I should do and interesting places to go.

cheers
Happy

You might begin with a check under "Find" for interesting places. As well, if you open up the map, you can see where a lot of people are ... although just using that is likely to plop you right into the middle of a bunch of Tringo zombies.

This really calls for the help of someone who's currently able to be in-game. I'd go in and guide you if I could, but right at the moment, I can't.

As Alex recommended, Find can be a great starting point. The thing to remember is you don't actually have to directly teleport to the place, you can instead "Show Map" and see how manypeople are there (the number of green dots). The "Popular Places" tab will usally show you places populated at all times. Visit "The Shelter", a popular place for new residents. If you just want to explore interetsing places, check out my visual parcel browser here:

http://slhandbook.com/parcelbrowse.asp

You can also try searching for events. Make sure you don't have the category set to "all", unless you want to see a million casinos.

I usually do a couple things when i was bored starting out, searched for things that i like in RL and see if theres anything that interests me on the same vein, also I did alot of exploring. If you go to your landmarks, and even if you dont think you have any, im pretty sure you have the grid entry point (I have no idea what its actually called but its the place with the four buildings and the fountain in the middle), if you go there im sure that there will be people. You might also want to check out the sandbox near there (I dont think I've seen it empty before), and the huge building next to it has an interesting sewer system you could explore.

These are just a couple ideas, and I hope this helps, you should really try to stick with SL, it is a little baffling in the beginning for some people who are used to goal oreinted MMORPGs