The inevitable Second Life article
It had to happen. After months waiting for my Second Life contact to get around to writing a piece for openDemocracy on theories of innovation in virtual worlds, I have been forced to rehash his thesis in the New Statesman:
Read the rest here. One small note: it appears the subs at the New Statesman make no distinction between a “working week” (35-40 hours) and a “working week” (168 hours), rendering a reference in the article wildly inaccurate. The rest of us get to go home after dark, but poor sods, John Kampfner must have his subs on the “stay awake” pills, turning round copy through the night in anticipation of the launch of their new website. For reference, then, the Wired travel guide to Second Life has excellent figures.
“Those who have not yet heard about Second Life, the online virtual world, can’t have read a newspaper for the past six months. Since May, when Business Weeksplashed the story of Anshe Chung, an in-world entrepreneur who dominates Second Life’s virtual real-estate market, all branches of the UK media have featured specials outlining the machinations of this playground of the imagination. Now Reuters has set up its own Second Life bureau, promising to break stories from the virtual frontiers.
”The media orgy was predictable. Here is a world that exists only on a rack of web servers in California. Yet more than half a million people (a population that’s growing furiously) log on for more than a week per month, on average. Could anything do more to confirm our fears of technology disconnecting us from reality?”
Read the rest here. One small note: it appears the subs at the New Statesman make no distinction between a “working week” (35-40 hours) and a “
