Reuters Second Life News Desk

Reuters steps into Second Life with a news bureau that will report on Sl and RL news.

From CNET:

"Starting on Wednesday, Reuters plans to begin publishing text, photo and video news from the outside world for "Second Life" members and news of Second Life for real world readers who visit a Reuters news site at http://secondlife.reuters.com/.

Adam Pasick, a Reuters' media correspondent based in London, will serve as the news organization's first virtual bureau chief, using a personal avatar, or animated character, called "Adam Reuters," in keeping with the game's naming system.

"Second Life" citizens can stay tuned to the latest headlines by using a feature called the Reuters News Center, a mobile device that users can carry inside the virtual environment. Stories will focus on both the fast-growing economy and culture of "Second Life" and also include links to Reuters news feeds from the outside world, ranging from Baghdad to Wall Street."

"As strange as it might seem, it's not that different from being a reporter in the real world," Pasick said. "Once you get used to it--it becomes very much like the job I have been doing for years."

Charts from secondlife.reuters.com


New York Times:

“The fact that it’s in a virtual world doesn’t change things as much as you’d think,” said Mr. Pasick, 30, a Michigan native 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.”

(That's Hank Hoodoo in the front)

Eightbar:

"Reuters’ island, created by The Electric Sheep Company, is impressively realistic. Having been heavily influenced by their real-life presence in Times Square (NYC) and Canary Wharf (London), it’s great fun to spot the details from their real-world locations. There’s a news HUD (Heads Up Display)to take away too, which is really worth a play."

Business Communicators of Second Life:

"What is far more significant than the opening of their presence in SL, is that Reuters Second Life News Center signals that Reuters believes Second Life is a viable and "real" business sector – an environment that real business should be monitoring. And, taking the 2D concept of comments from readers into the 3D web, Reuters Atrium is an area for avatars to gather to discuss Second Life stories."

New World Notes:

"Reuters' SL bureau is located on an island dubbed, fittingly enough, Reuters (direct portal here), and it's linked to the heads-up display, which shows Web feeds both from the real world, and from the company's new SL page. "That 'speech bubble' icon [on the HUD] will teleport you to news discussion areas inside the sim," bureau chief Adam Reuters explains. On the island, "[t]here's a big replica of the Reuters display, screens in Times Square, a big video display, and discussion areas for each of the news topics that are on the HUD."

The HUD also displays the L$-to-US$ exchange rate, updated several times an hour. "We'll be doing a lot more with charts and data over the next month or two," he tells me. "Down the road, I'd like to create an inflation index -- pick a basket of goods and monitor the price over time."

3pointD:

"There’s a very nice tower on the Reuters sim, where correspondent Adam Reuters (aka Reuters’ Adam Pasick) will hold regular “office hours,” and you can pick up a free heads-up display or virtual wall-mounted unit that feeds running headlines from both SL and RL that can be clicked through to a Web page for the full stories.

Another nice aspect of the project is that readers can record their interest in a story via the HUD, which will also alert them when discussions on stories of interest are being held and offer them a teleport to the Reuters site if they want to take part."