Newsmaker: Reuters' 'Second Life' reporter talks shop

On Oct. 16, Reuters opened its first all-digital bureau, a building in the virtual world "Second Life" modeled on its New York and London offices.

Almost immediately, news agencies around the world picked up on the story, intrigued by the fact that one of the oldest existing news outlets would choose to station Adam Pasick, a full-time reporter, in an entirely virtual environment.

For its part, Reuters is using the bureau to disseminate its real-world news feeds to "Second Life" residents, hoping in the process to find a new audience.

Reuters is not the only news outlet to hang a shingle in "Second Life." In fact, CNET had previously opened a "Second Life" bureau and has been using the virtual space as a venue for interviewing luminaries from the technology community.

Still, the fact that Reuters--which is better known for financial and business reporting than for culture coverage--decided to set up shop in "Second Life" is noteworthy.

My parents love it now. They have avatars and hang out in the Reuters building.

Known in-world as Adam Reuters, Pasick is new to covering virtual worlds. ( "Second Life" enables corporate clients to purchase their company's name as a last name for employees' avatars.) But as a seasoned Internet reporter, he is approaching the assignment as he would any new gig.

On Monday, Pasick visited CNET's "Second Life" bureau and sat down for an interview in front of an audience of about 40, during which he talked about many of the issues facing a reporter in such a different kind of environment.

Q: This has been a pretty exciting week or so for you, I'm guessing. What has it been like?
Pasick: You could say that the reaction to our launch went way beyond anything we had expected. Now that the attention from the mainstream press is dying down a little, I'm looking forward to getting into the reporting. We thought we might make a little splash. Instead, I've been getting interview requests from Poland, Colombia, Brazil, New Zealand.

How did the Reuters bureau come about?
Pasick: The idea originally came from a conversation between our CEO, Tom Glocer, and Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale at the Sun Valley Conference earlier this year. They came to me (recently) and asked if I wanted to run the bureau.

Why you?
Pasick: I've been writing about technology and media for a while, and somehow, I've gotten the reputation within Reuters of being a bit of a geek.

Adam Pasick's
avatar

What was your initial reaction to being asked if you wanted to do this? Did you know much about "Second Life" at that point?
Pasick: I had heard of "Second Life" but never had been in-world. To be completely honest, when I first heard the idea, I was a bit dubious. But even as I talked it over that first time, I saw that it could be a great idea if done well. I think that's typical of "Second Life": The more time you spend, the more it makes sense.

From that perspective, what did you think "done well" would mean?
Pasick: Offering something useful to the community and being a learning experience for Reuters. If it was just a quick PR hit, I wouldn't have been interested. This is my full-time job. I badly want it to succeed.

So what do you see as the "mission" of Reuters in "Second Life"?
Pasick: If we can provide good financial news and data to the "Second Life" business community, and find a new audience for Reuters among "Second Life" residents, I'll be happy.

So it's as much about bringing Reuters news into "Second Life" as about sending "Second Life" news out?
Pasick: It's twofold. We bring in real-life Reuters news for those who want it, and I write stories specifically for "Second Life" residents.

How do you plan to differentiate your "Second Life" coverage from that of the many "Second Life" bloggers?
Pasick: Well, there will be a certain amount of competition. That's inevitable. But there are so many good stories, especially in the economy and business sectors that I'm focusing on. We're just getting started. We're hoping to do a lot of quantitative stories about the economy, for example. That's one area where Reuters has a lot of expertise.

What was your budget for the bureau?
Pasick: I don't know the exact figure. Luckily, I didn't have to sit through those meetings. But it was a relative drop in the bucket for a company our size.

More Newsmakers

[thedreaming]

Second Life

What I still don't understand about Second Life is that there aren't that many users in it. I figure they have at least a million, but WOW has over 6 million. If you were shooting for a mass audience, wouldn't it make sense to have a presence there?

Granted, I'm talking apples and oranges here. One is a standard MMORPG and the other is more a simulator where all the content is created by the users. It's more of a virtual store, selling virtual goods, but making real money (after the exchange from lindollars to US currency.)

[hybris06]

Second Life? How about a first life

I have no interest in using these fake realities. But from what I understand, users spend countless hours playing these games when they could be enriching their mind, developing real relationships, or working in the real world.

I sincerely hope that Second Life isn't a glimpse into the future of how we all will spend our free time. I enjoy going out with my friends, dating, and doing other non "bowling alone" scenarios.

The fact that these games have such a large community is somewhat scary. Are we destined to "tune in and tune out" and have our only contact with the outside be online?

[Len Bullard]

SecondLife IS About LindenDollars and $$$

SecondLife IS about the exchange rate for Linden dollars. There are plenty of online worlds out there and even some that work over dial-up and don't force content creators into the Linden Labs intellectual property trap. They don't matter because no one is making real world dollars in those.

Now at some point, the legal entanglements of exchange rates among virtual worlds will come up. These are the halcyon days when the corporations race each other to co-opt the next new thing. Just as with the web itself a decade ago, that fever dies in the face of unresolved and sometimes insoluable problems of technology and cultural issues that put ceilings on the real money that can be made inside the Lindenverse. But by that time, real-time 3D as a browser interface and as a new art form is well-established and the corporations will opt to host their own worlds with their own cultures and policies using standardized technologies that interoperate seamlessly.

For example, look at ABNet from Kimball Software (no I don't work for them). It enables basic chat for any X3D world from the users own hosting service. It will be service suppliers using technologies such as that who will build the 3D web. SecondLife will be to the 3D web what Netscape was to the text web.

As seen before, any technology on the web that gets its legs gets its competition fast and furious. That is the nature of the ecology and be glad for it. Otherwise, you'd be reading this on a gray screen with monotype text.