The news that press agency Reuters has abandoned its Second Life bureau will surely discourage other serious news organisations from getting into the virtual world.
The story broke at The Register and since then reporter Eric Reuters explains why Reuters backed away from the project which has been reporting on the life and goings on within the massively popular multiplayer environment.
At AlleyInsider, Eric “Reuters” Krangal gives some insight into the decision as well as putting forward some suggestions on how the situation could be improved.
He explains: “It’s hard to say what, if anything, Linden Lab can do to make Second Life appeal to a general audience. The very things that most appeal to Second Life’s hardcore enthusiasts are either boring or creepy for most people: Spending hundreds of hours of effort to make insignificant amounts of money selling virtual clothes, experimenting with changing your gender or species, getting into random conversations with strangers from around the world, or having pseudo-nonymous sex (and let’s not kid ourselves, sex is a huge draw into Second Life). ”
And a glance at SL’s official newspaper The Avastar (produced by German tabloid newspaper giant Bild) certainly backs up that assessment of why ailing newspapers might struggle to find its worth.
The Avastar’s review of the year has just been published and what’s the top story? “RL (real life) porn star Jenna Jameson was training an army of SL’s “nastiest” girls to dominate the virtual sex industry. ”
While the many loyal fans of the service are always desperate to assure us all that it’s not just about flying penises and adult island life, my own limited experience of SL has also failed, as yet, to find the true news worth of the platform.
I enthusiastically roamed the SL Manchester in the hope of reporting from that community on a dedicated section I started at the Mancunian Way blog – but have so far failed to find anything much like a community with deserted shopping streets and a lonely Hacienda night out.
With the frequent crashes and lack of support when things are inexplicable that Eric also notes, the technology for SL still seems too clunky for the average user.
Having said that, I would love to be proved wrong because I find the concept of a virtual world fascinating.
But, for now at least, SL remains a better idea than it is an experience.
Dim Sum Digital 
I have always been bemused by 2nd Life and it’s interface into the real world. From my limited experience it has always been another avenue for communication, a room where you can talk to a different set of people about a different set of topics. I attended a MIDAS event last week and they had a speaker from IBM @epredator is his 2nd Life and Twitter name and he spoke about how second life was enabling better communication within IBM. Conference calls where handled by meeting around the 2nd life campfire or in the large 2nd life board room. This all looked very alluring and practical but I didn’t get the sense of who you deal with real issues. If you have a larger community of IBM of which there where a few, how did the corporate IBM manifest itself. If in a time of stress how did it communicate to a member of it’s community that they’re services where no longer required. You can still get sacked in 2nd Life you know. Last year I was researching how information was getting out of Burma during the democracy uprising for a multi-media project and came across internet news channels, blogs, proxy servers etc but no 2nd Life. I did how ever find and I think they’re still on YouTube, 2nd Life protests around the 2nd Life Burmese Embassy. Hordes of pixies, fairies and other worldly beings protesting without fear of repercussion from 2nd Life Military Police or Armed Forces. You can’t dismiss 2nd Life as a phenomenon, but as a platform for people to tackle or take in real world issues I think we are deluding ourselves after all as you have said Sarah a lot of people are just there for the sex.
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I have always been bemused by 2nd Life and it’s interface into the real world. From my limited experience it has always been another avenue for communication, a room where you can talk to a different set of people about a different set of topics. I attended a MIDAS event last week and they had a speaker from IBM @epredator is his 2nd Life and Twitter name and he spoke about how second life was enabling better communication within IBM. Conference calls where handled by meeting around the 2nd life campfire or in the large 2nd life board room. This all looked very alluring and practical but I didn’t get the sense of who you deal with real issues. If you have a larger community of IBM of which there where a few, how did the corporate IBM manifest itself. If in a time of stress how did it communicate to a member of it’s community that they’re services where no longer required. You can still get sacked in 2nd Life you know. Last year I was researching how information was getting out of Burma during the democracy uprising for a multi-media project and came across internet news channels, blogs, proxy servers etc but no 2nd Life. I did how ever find and I think they’re still on YouTube, 2nd Life protests around the 2nd Life Burmese Embassy. Hordes of pixies, fairies and other worldly beings protesting without fear of repercussion from 2nd Life Military Police or Armed Forces. You can’t dismiss 2nd Life as a phenomenon, but as a platform for people to tackle or take in real world issues I think we are deluding ourselves after all as you have said Sarah a lot of people are just there for the sex.
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