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Second Life and the Fourth Estate, Part Two: A Stupid Kind of Benevolence

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Wagner, Dr. King, and Tinky Winky Adam Reuters née Pasick may be buried deep within the unlinked subdomains of the venerable, unclawable Reuters (sure to be alone with the cockroaches after Medialoper has faded to virtual dust), but closer to the surface of visibility is Wagner James Au. His New World Notes blog is linked slightly below the fold of secondlife.com, with a heroic avatar headshot and the questionably hyphenated blurb “Wagner James Au reports first-hand from Second Life.”

Au writes less about business profits climbing and more about the actual culture of Second Life. Oddly enough, “Au” is not representative of the Au Corporation, but, rather, the man’s actual last name. So the reporter primarily covering meatspace (Adam Reuters) gets his identity subsumed, while the self-described embedded journalist (Wagner James Au) gets to use his real name. There’s some comfort in knowing that irony is the primary motivating factor in both universes.

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Second Life and the Fourth Estate

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Adam Reuters and copyright violations.

We aren’t doing this not to be noticed.

This stuff, what I’m doing at this moment. Writing. Online. Not me, not Kirk or Kassia or Jim or Roxanne or anyone else in Team Loper’s extended tail. We want to be seen. This is not to say that we aren’t doing it for the love of the words, or because we aren’t genuinely interested in the culture on which we report. Those things are all true.

But we aren’t exactly anonymous, either. All of us want to be recognized to as writers (though I suspect we all know better than to adopt such a lofty title based on blogging). We have bylines because we want you, dear Loperfan, to know who said what, and so we can get that thrill of me! i wrote that! while cringing at all the typos we didn’t catch before going live. I’m one of the worst, both in typos and because I haven’t been able to breach the ego barrier and simply use my first name. Heavens no. That’s not good enough. Has to say “Sherilyn Connelly,” lest someone think Sherilyn Fenn wrote it. (I see Roxanne also keeps the Irish surname visible. Power, sister-in-law!)

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Second Life, Snowballing and Solstice

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Vaal goes splodey.

I like the Harry Potter novels. I can forgive most of their flaws and holes, but the presence of Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter takes me right out of the narrative. Yes, of course, I realize those holidays are pagan in origin, and it’d be different if the characters were acknowledging them as such, especially since the strange customs of the non-magical world is a running theme. But, no. It’s Christmas and Easter and Halloween and all the stuff the readers can identify with.

Ay, there’s the rub: enough of Rowling’s world is cribbed from other sources make-believe that keeping in such recognizable holidays helps keep things grounded for the younger kids. Not to mention the older ones. And can you imagine how much more flak the books would get from Fundamentalists if Christmas was replaced with Saturnalia or Natalis Invicti? As it is, probably the worst influence the books have is introducing children to faux Latin.

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Second Life, Activism, and the Digital Arena

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Winners don't forget real world drugs.

Someone always has to harsh the mellow, don’t they? If it’s not grey goo (ding! ding! ding!), it’s do-gooders like the World Development Movement. Yeah, I’d never heard of them either, probably because they haven’t been adopted by Bono or Sting. Their big move is to place a counter in Second Life which ostensibly keeps track of the (estimated) number of children who’ve died from poverty and other preventable causes since the virtal world went live in 2003.

Unfortunately for the message, the counter is in fairly small type at the bottom of a large, underdesigned billboard which reads DON’T FORGET THE REAL WORLD. A valid if admonishing message, as is the counter, but what exactly are they expecting? That Second Lifers will see the billboard from afar, decide for some reason to come in for a (much) closer look, see the counter, then have an attack of conscience and do something about that world with its children croaking like clockwork?

An argument could be made that if it makes just one user, like Aimee The Scary Blowup Doll, get off their Frito-enhanced duff and do something—”something” probably meaning making a
contribution to the WDM—it was worth the effort. I guess, but even if Second Life shut down tomorrow, social conditions in meatspace would not improve. I’m reminded of the arguments against NASA and space exploration: we should take care of our problems on earth before we go into space! Yeah, well, if NASA was dismantled, the money would not go towards feeding the poor or educating children. When Napster was shut down, I kept an eye on the Billboard charts to see if Metallica albums would shoot to the top of the charts. Never quite happened.

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Second Life, Sony, and Suzanne

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Suzanne Vega, Journey, and Aimee the Scary Blowup Doll.My initial reaction was you have GOT to be shitting me, followed closely by huh. that kinda makes sense. That’s been my chain of response to most everything about the online virtual world thingy Second Life thus far, from the basic concept to its immense popularity to the gazillions of dollars spent on it daily to the notion that for many users it’s just high-bandwidth cybersex to the fact that major brands are establishing a marketing presence there. That it even qualifies as a “there” is troubling, but according to consensus reality, it exists. And where people go, they will be sold to. Certainly advertising in video games is nothing new, dating at least back to the Marlboro ads in Pole Position II. The blatant promotion of cigarettes to ten year-olds (as opposed to the comparatively more subtle Joe Camel approach) has that certain early-eighties charm, doesn’t it?

So after a momentary incredulousness, I realized the lack of shock value that the allegedly beleaguered music industry (whose tolerate/hate relationship with the internet is probably the most well-documented struggle since World War II) is attempting to get a piece of the virtual pie’s very real money, in such forms as the imaginatively named Sony Music Media Island. In Second Life parlance, an island is the same thing as in meatspace: a mass of land surrounded by water. The owner can do pretty much whatever they want with it, allowing for the fulfillment of more than a few fascist fantasies. Rule your vampire clan while sitting at your computer in a bathrobe! We may not have flying cars, but the Future’s still pretty great.

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Universal Music’s New Biz Model: Lawsuits and Extortion!

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Unversal Music, the mega-major record label that thinks so little of its fans that their CEO, Doug Morris, recently said that iPods were: “just repositories for stolen music,” has evidentally hit upon a new business model: lawsuits and extortion.

Apparently making money by putting good music out there with a price point that might entice people just isn’t good enough. Because, of course, we are all thieves. So instead of that, they’ve decided to go a different route. Instead of using their artists to make money, they’ve decided to fall back upon the lawyers. Hopefully, the lawyers will get a better royalty rate.

Let’s review, shall we?

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Google’s Bid For World Domination

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As you might have heard, Google went and acquired YouTube for a mere $1.65 billion. Time will tell if this was a brilliant business move or not. I believe Google’s acquisition is far more savvy than News Corps’ purchase of MySpace. MySpace is a mess and by the time anyone figures out how to make lots of money from the venture, the kids who give the site its buzz will be on to the next big thing.

But YouTube? There’s a different animal. Whether it’s $1.65 billion is debatable, but YouTube’s model — easily syndicated and shared content — gives the site a broader appeal. You don’t have to go to YouTube; it can come to you. Every time a little player is embedded in a website, YouTube’s brand is extended into the public consciousness. Google, being Google, will not be long in figuring out how to turn this into money. Simplest way is to leverage the sites who use AdSense and embed video.
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Why MySpace Won’t Live To See 25

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It was only a few weeks ago that MySpace was claiming to have passed Yahoo as the most popular site on the internet. Now it’s being reported that YouTube has passed MySpace. MySpace’s reign at the top lasted about three weeks. I’m guessing that’s not what Rupert Murdoch paid over $580 million for.

Has MySpace peaked? Probably yes. There have been plenty of reports indicating that MySpace’s target demographic no longer finds the site to be cool. Part of the problem is that dozens of new social networking sites seem to pop up every week. MySpace has lots of competition and no longer seems cutting edge to a generation of kids who live online and spend a good deal of their time looking for the next great thing. You only have to look back to the rise and fall of Friendster to realize just how bad things might get for MySpace.

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Technology Is Not A Replacement For Parenting

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I am in a bit of a mood today, and reading that “experts” don’t think MySpace is doing enough to protect kids from online predators really pushed one of my buttons. Does Target do enough to protect kids from predators? Does Disneyland? Does your local grocery store?

You know who should be doing more to protect kids from online predators? Their parents. Depending on technology to keep your kids safe can only go so far. MySpace is attempting to institute age restrictions, but let’s be honest, there is no truer statement that this:

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