Reuters to open virtual bureau in Second Life

Posted by Martin Stabe on 15 October 2006 at 23:01
Tags: BBC, CNET, Journalism, Reuters, Second Life

Reuters is planning to open a bureau in Second Life, the virtual world created by San Francisco-based Linden Labs.

London-based correspondent Adam Pasick will appear in Second Life as the avatar Adam Reuters, reported the International Herald Tribune, following initial reports on the Second Life Herald blog.

More than 850,000 people are registered to participate in Second Life, which was recently the subject of a detailed introduction in the Economist. The in-world currency, the Linden Dollar, can be exchanged for real-world currency on the open market.

As one might expect, Reuters’ Second Life web site tracks Second Life’s key economic indicators, including the Linden Dollar’s fluctuation against real-world currency. According to the Reuters’ site, the rate on Sunday evening was 271.4 Linden Dollars to one US Dollar, and $407,666 had been spent in Second Life over the previous 24 hours. Pasick’s first dispatch as “Reuters SL bureau chief Adam Reuters” was an interview with Nicholas Portocarrero, chief executive of in-world bank Ginko.

Pasick told the IHT: “It’s not any different than when Reuters opens up a bureau in a part of the world that has a fast-growing economy that we weren’t in before. The laws of supply and demand hold true, it has a currency exchange, people open businesses and get paid for goods and services.”

Reuters’ virtual building will appear as a hybrid of its Canary Wharf building and its equivalent in Times Square, New York. Reuters is the second news organisation to establish a presence in the virtual world — after CNET News.com, which unveiled a virtual version of its San Francisco headquarters last month — but it appears to be the first to dedicate a correspondent to report on the phenomenon.

The BBC has also shown interest in Second Life. It has already presented a concert in Second Life, and director general Mark Thompson and new media director Ashley Highfield met with Linden Labs on their recent US “fact-finding mission”. Last week Chris Vallance of BBC Radio FiveLive’s Pods and Blogs conducted an interview in Second Life.

The journalists are late to the game, though — technology PR consultancy Text 100 is already offering virtual spin in-world.