Klastrup's Cataclysms

Today I appeared briefly on national morning tv, in the slot of TV 2 GoMorgen Danmark (if you have a pc and want to pay, you can even view the clip if you follow the link from the webpage ;)). I was there with two journalists from the newish free newspaper 24timer, to talk about Second Life, one of the largest, if not currently THE largest entertainment & soical world online (SL is NOT a MMOG in anyway, IMO).

What spawned the interview, is the fact that 24timer is about to open an editorial sanctuary inside Second Life, and is the first Danish business to actually set up house there (Innovation Lab, IBM and Computerworld were the first to make a group: "House of Horizons" but they havent created a physical dwelling in the world yet).

24timer's idea is to tell stories from Second Life in the print paper (apparently there are around 5000 Danish users of Second Life, so in terms of reader numbers it does make sense that this iniative is oriented towards readers of the print paper, not world users), and to make it possible for people in the world to read the print paper from the santuary and play around in the house as such . So far the experiment lasts for a week or so - and the journalists I spoke to seem pretty dedicated, so I will hang around to keep track, I think. They have also hired a "house artists" to build and decorate their place, so also as a design project it will be interesting to follow.

The print version of 24timer today features the Second Life initiative on the frontpage, and they have also devoted an entire page inside the paper to the world (you can read the paper as pdf via the website). Progressive move, guys. There are a lot of potential in a world like Second Life, which as world is "famous" for letting users create their own objects and following keep the ownership of them, and it is interesting to see what online world reporting will turn out to be. However what I have seen so far has given me the impression that SL is a extremely commodified space, inhabited mainly by people who are in it for the Linden$. I hope that what the journalists can report from SL will prove me wrong...

# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:52

Comments:

Maybe this is the time to act differently - as a SL n00b i got the first impression that it was as most parts of the Internet - about sex... It was a bit of a turn off to see it, but after spending a bit more time, I must agree that selling things is a big thing, and it made me wonder if an Create to give thought would survice in SL.

What if I because of the pure pleasure of creating (artists and such) where to create things, just to give it away - with the intent ofcause to get known and respected in both SL and IRL... Donations like used in the Open Source world would also be an approace... Any thoughts ?

# posted by Anonymous : 4:10 PM

Lisbeth sorry not to have seen your appearance in morgen-TV: I've largely abandoned traditional media formats.

Regarding Second Life I agree that the larger part of the 2 million userbase is focused on commodities, having fun, clubbing, roleplaying Barbie and Ken or shooting it out - perhaps this is more a reflection of our real world priorities and aspirations than it is an inherent trait of the SL platform.

If you dig deep enough you will find at least a few interesting experiments where groups try to organise virtual communities. A group which does so on the basis of democractic ideals is the socalled "Confederation of Democratic Simulators", which run two cities - Neufreistadt and Colonia Nova. If you get the chance do check them out. They're an interesting microcosm in the larger flux that is SL.

Ref:
http://forums.neufreistadt.info
http://wiki.neufreistadt.info
http://www.neufreistadt.info

# posted by Kristoffer : 1:29 PM