NEW WORLD NOTES IN THE NEWS

I've been bad at keeping track of recent interviews and appearances of NWN in the media, so at the risk of irksome self-aggrandizement ("But enough about me-- here's what they thought about me!"), I'll be posting regular clip compilations like this; ignore or read on at will.

- Wired Magazine, October Issue: "Wired Travel Guide: Second Life"

The feature article I contributed to and mentioned here is now available online.

- BBC Radio Five Live, "Pods and Blogs", 10/17: "Rights, Reuters, and Robert Scoble"

Brief interview with host Chris Vallance.

- The Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/20: "Real suit over virtual property"

"It's a full-fledged society, and as a full-fledged society, it has a real economy going on. It has its own aerospace and architecture firms, fashion design is huge, casino ownership, game design is huge," said Wagner James Au, who writes stories about Second Life as an "embedded" reporter (Second Life invited him aboard).

- The San Francisco Chronicle, 10/17: "A real reporter in a virtual world" 

Pasick, who posts under the Adam Reuters byline, isn't the first journalist in the community. Publications include the Second Life Herald and In the Grid magazine, and there's also an embedded reporter named Wagner James Au who has been writing stories since 2003. 

Fleck said Au has broken several stories that were picked up by the mainstream media  --  including a revolt in Second Life over a taxation issue. (Signing up to Second Life is free, but players pay fees and taxes for property.) He also wrote extensively about a Second Life virtual visit from former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, whose avatar appeared for a public interview in August.

- VuNet, 10/18: "Corporate Culture in Second Life"
Au has seen Second Life grow from a close-knit, subscription-based community into a virtual world hosting a myriad of dedicated groups with various interests and levels of involvement... When Linden Lab sold a virtual island to a London-based branding company in 2004, unhappy players gave their avatars protest signs and sent them to the island. "They believed that they were building this utopia that was separate from the real world, and then this guy came in and said: 'I'm going to bring in brands.' People started to freak out," Au told vnunet.com.  Users have come to terms with the corporate elements in Second Life, Au claimed, mainly because those who do not wish to view the corporate areas are under no obligation to do so. [I'd probably qualify that last sentence beginning with "Users have for the most part largely..." - WJA]

- BusinessWeek.com, 10/17: "Big Media Gets a Second Life"
... Media companies even face competition from virtual upstarts inside Second Life, including New World Notes and SL Herald.

- Contagious Magazine, October Issue: "Let's Get Metaphysical".
With resident-created brands already pervasive in SL, virtual ad clutter is an issue for incomers... Au adovocates collaboration (ultimately two-way) between real life and Second Life brands. 

Comments

[Moriash Moreau]

As my grandma used to say, "He who tooteth not his own horn will find himself untooted." Keep it up!

Seriously, NWN is one of a handful of major public faces for SL. I don't think it's at all irksome or inappropriate to track how and where it shows up, if for no other reason than what is good for NWN (as a window to the SL community) is generally good for SL at large. It's nice to hear about another audience turned on to Second Life.

[rikomatic]

It's always a dangerous bit of navel-gazing for the media to do stories on what other media is covering. Perhaps I should write a story about how mainstream media cover Second Life media? And publish it via semaphore.

That said, well done, Hamlet! Serving as both unofficial SL spokesperson and SL investigative reporter can't be an easy mix. And yet you seem to pull it off with such pinache and cool.

[Hamlet Au]

Aw, thanks.