Aside from the fact that Second Life bogs down my computer, my surroundings take about 20 minutes to load properly, the lag time is excruciating, I can't go five minutes without my avatar being groped (which in real life would result in my very real fist in someone's very real face) and the minor obstacle that hardly anyone will talk to me, I think SL is…ok. That means it's growing on me, though, because I used to hate it.
Not a single one of these people even responded to me when I said "Hi."Photo: Laurel Kupka
Through further investigation, however, I realized that Second Life has its own groups, worlds (sort of like countries), politics, sex, parties, fashion and news. It also has its own challenges, addressed in this BlogHer discussion with members of the Second Life media. A lot of these things were problems I ran into myself.
For example, how do you find a story in Second Life? I still have no clue. You can't look to other news sources or blogs, because then you're just regurgitating their ideas. Hardly anyone would talk to poor Rosie when she tried to strike up a conversation. When they did, the lag time made it difficult. How do you find sources? The BlogHer panelists mentioned making friends, joining groups and attending events – networking. Ok, this seems eerily similar to reporting in the real world. Do you cite sources by their avatar's name or their real names? I would certainly never give out my real name.
Once you have a story, how do you report it? Second Life TV is not like real TV, which allows reporters to easily use visuals to tell a story. It's probably pretty painstaking for people to create those videos. SL isn't good for a lot of text either. Using Second life as a news medium appears to be very hard.
Finally, how do you make money? Most SL reporters are balancing reporting in world with reporting in the real world because being paid in Linden dollars sucks. Until this problem is solved, people aren't going to be able to really invest enough time in Second Life to really produce the quality news they're capable of.
I concur the biggest challenge is reaching out to people (when they aren't ahem reaching out to you). What do you think of the streaming SL broadcasts of news and opportunities for crowdsourcing?
I think the broadcasts are really cool, and I'd be interested to find out how many people actually watch them. SL brings people all over the world together, which gives reporters access to people they'd never talk to in RL, which brings an interesting and new perspective. I like the idea of organizing "events" too, because otherwise I think avatars would just be wandering around instead of having significant interaction with people who share a common interest.