lucky severson reports. >> reporter: when the sun comes up in second life, which it does every four hours, you are immediately overwhelmed by the vast, brightly colored mish-mash of stores, houses, and malls stretching across multiple continents-- all of it, including the mountains and forests, designed and built from scratch by the tens of thousands of people who regularly visit here. move your mouse and you tour the taj mahal. a few clicks and you are launched on a nasa rocket into low orbit. click again and you can join a service in an anglican cathedral. this live, online world called second life was launched in 2003 by the san francisco company linden lab and its founder phillip rosedale, who says he had no idea what would happen. >> i always figured in the beginning that if second life looked like anything we were able to predict that we would have failed, that if it was predictable, we weren't doing the right stuff. >> reporter: second life is definitely not predictable. turn a corner and you might run into a furry animal that talks. it isn't just the buildings that are designed by