While bloggers and independent reporters have been a part of Second Life for awhile, Adam Pasick of Reuters has become the first reporter from old media to be sent to the online virtual world.
For those of you who may not know, Second Life is an online virtual world created by Linden Labs that is populated by 850,000 players from around the world. Represented by Avatars - animated figures - the players are empowered to buy islands on which they can build their own homes or businesses, and sell all sorts of things that they create. They use a currency called Linden dollars. You can buy these virtual dollars for $1, which gives you 280 of them. Some people are making a living by inhabiting this world.
Photo: Jonathan Bainbridge/Reuters
“The fact that it’s in a virtual world doesn’t change things as much as you’d think,” said Pasick, based in London. “It’s not any different than when Reuters opens up a bureau in a part of the world that has a fast-growing economy that we weren’t in before. The laws of supply and demand hold true, it has a currency exchange, people open businesses and get paid for goods and services.”
Pasick, who is Adam Reuters in Second Life, has his Avatar modeled upon how he actually looks in real life. He is setting up his business in a virtual building that will be based upon Reuters’ London and Times Square buildings.
Players in the game will be able to access Reuters news articles from the real world, but Pasick's stories will be solely about Second Life and its inhabitants.
When you think of this, it is a cool and smart idea. The Second Life world is probably going to reach 1 million inhabitants in the not-too-distant future. If there was a physical city growing that fast, press would be dispatched all over it. Who wouldn't want to add coverage to a potential 1 million new readers?
But let's face what this really is: a great marketing strategy that will probably delight the participants without them feeling in any way disrupted in their experience.
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