Reuters Opening Second Life Bureau
Adam Reuters is the official Reuters Second Life bureau chief and in-world reporter. Adam will apparently be living his news beat by staying close to the SL culture and its stories. According to the Reuters Second Life News Center web page, the real-life Adam Pasick and his avatar will be keeping in-world office hours in Reuters’ new sim, Reuters Atrium. The Atrium is not yet open, but based on the web site, I'm venturing to say it is slated for unveiling on October 16th.
The Reuters web-based Second Life News Center has real-time Linden currency charts, a currency converter (for all major world currencies) and a teleport link to the Reuters Atrium. They have advance-posted there three of Adam’s interviews. Two of the interviews are audio interviews with Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) about the Second Life economy – and one is an interview with the in-world bank, Ginko Financial. Rosedale talks about how the money supply works and has changed; as well as keeping the SL economy growing while keeping inflation in check. Linden Labs closely watches the currency exchange rate, instituting the same kind of economic controls any central banking system might to keep the SL currency stable. Of course, the economy is also subject to similar open market forces that any real world economy is.
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.
Reuters is asking for story ideas – so it may now be time to pay "real world" attention, business communicators.
On a side note, I'm honored by the discovery that this blog is included in Reuters Second Life news feed and has been listed on their blog roll.
October 13, 2006
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