Very good article, and strangely similar my experience with second life, I was originally drawn into the game when I first left home, was very alone and thought whats the harm in trying something like that to get some social interaction. I'd always dismissed this sort of thing in the past, "MSN with avatars" I'd say cynically. Since then... well my account has been active for about 3 years now, 3 years of meeting fascinating people from all over the world that I wouldnt have had a chance to before, heck about a year ago I even had someone from tennessee fly over to the UK to spend a week with me, now how often does that sort of thing come about from a game of Starcraft or TF2... in short its been 3 years that have drastically changed my view of the online community, any online community.
Think the most fundimental thing I brought away from it all is that everything online, be it forum posts, avatars etc. are all people, before then I was very cynical, with my outlook I was essentially treating them like some AI, the same way I would a bot or an NPC in a video game, not real people with real feelings and emotions.
While I rarely frequent the world of SL these days, through a combination of RL commitments (work, family and so on) and slightly offput by the drama inherent in an online community, spent a lot of time on SL playing agony aunt or shoulder to cry on to people, not necessarily unwillingly to my "close friends" on there but there are times I just dont feel up to it. I do know the people I've met on thier and the time we shared, I wouldnt change it for the world.
