PJNet » Second Life http://pjnet.org Public Journalism Network Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:34:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Today for Me the Virtual World Became Very Real http://pjnet.org/post/1639/ http://pjnet.org/post/1639/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:11:44 +0000 Leonard Witt http://pjnet.org/post/1639/ It is 7 a.m. I am being transported to a magnificent office building on an island surrounded by mountains and blue seas. I am at least a couple of decades younger, a few inches  taller,  and for the first time in my life svelte. My brightly colored shirt, reflecting a tropical jungle motif, accents this new body. And I am awake. Indeed, I am seeing potential that I have not seen before until this day.

I have heard lots about SecondLife.com and Kaneva.com. Have tried them out, but gave up on them as a waste of time. I am not into pretend worlds, but today is different. It’s that office building. It’s the invitation to give a presentation here in a few weeks that helps me see the real worth of the pretend SecondLife.com.

We will be assembling a small group of people from around the world for my multi-media very real presentation, almost like a sales pitch on an idea I have. Getting all those people there will cost nothing. We will all be present in the room to present real ideas in our own voices — only we will have avatars substituting for our real bodies. Which is not so bad because today at 7 a.m. my older, less svelte body adorned in  plaid pajamas  in a slightly messy office lacks the freshness of my upbeat avatar on the screen.

If you are a pragmatist, stop thinking of a pretend life in a pretend world. Instead start thinking of accomplishing real work in this pretend environment. Suddenly it takes on a new dimension that frankly was lost on me before, even though I heard presentations about it more than a year ago. I just got it thanks to my avatar and the person who invited me to his office space. Now since this is a serious meeting I will have to ditch the bright shirt as I move from fantasy to reality, which really begins to beg philosophical and psychological questions as we play fewer games and do more real world tasks in that virtual space.  Of course, now all of this is very primitive. It reminds me years ago of the first revelation I had that the Internet was going to change our lives. This, my friends, will too.

]]> http://pjnet.org/post/1639/feed/ 1 CNN to Teach Journalism in Second Life http://pjnet.org/post/1625/ http://pjnet.org/post/1625/#comments Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:28:40 +0000 Leonard Witt http://pjnet.org/post/1625/ This from MediaWeek:

As news organizations slash budgets and scale back bureaus, CNN is expanding—except not in real life.

In the week of Nov. 5, the news giant is set to open a news-gathering outpost in Second Life. And unlike news service Reuters, which embedded a real reporter in the online virtual world last year, CNN will rely on Second Life “residents” to do all the legwork….

…the network will act as a sort of journalism school, offering guidance to avatar citizen journalists via weekly “news meetings” directed by CNN.com staffers.

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