Reuters' Latest 'Scoop': The First News Service In Second Life

from the dateline:-who-caresville dept

Mon, Oct 16th 2006 2:46am — Carlo Longino

Add the venerable news service Reuters to the ever-growing list of companies trying to look cool by setting up shop inside the virtual world Second Life. The company has put up the requisite building in the game, but has gone a set further by assigning a reporter to cover it full time. Under the nickname "Adam Reuters", a London-based reporter will cover the in-game business of Second Life, just as if it were any other growing economy in which Reuters has a bureau, and posting the stories on a dedicated site. SL users can also go to the Reuters building to read stories, or meet up with the reporter during his posted "office hours". The first story he's written -- which even features a "Second Life" dateline -- is on the leading in-game bank, which some have alleged is little more than a Ponzi scheme. Reuters' interest in Second Life seems to have been pushed by the company's CEO, who claims in The New York Times to have been playing in it for a long time. There are undoubtedly some interesting stories to be told about the in-game economy -- like when in-game banks fail and cause people to lose real-world money -- but this really seems secondary to the publicity aims of this move. In real life, Reuters competes furiously with other newswires like Dow Jones and Bloomberg to get its stories out to its financial-industry subscribers the quickest. While it may have beaten its rivals on this scoop, somehow we doubt they're too bothered -- particularly when Second Life has a population of just 850,000 (most of which isn't in the game at any given time), and its economy remains small, with user-to-user transactions worth just $7.1 million in September.

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8 Comments

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Dom, 16 Oct 2006 @ 3:45am

That would be a pretty neat job to have. Second Life can be pretty interesting, I imagine he'd get some good stories.
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Haywood, 16 Oct 2006 @ 7:39am

With just 3700 votes, out of a population of 100,000 in an average election in my local area, "most of which isn't in the game at any given time" applies in the real world as well.
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James, 16 Oct 2006 @ 8:33am

OMG .. thats sooooooo cool !!
I'm waiting for Paris Hilton to open a boutique before I start playing !! (barfs uncontrollably)
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Jeremy, 16 Oct 2006 @ 8:36am

techwhine
Does Techdirt ever have anything good to say about anybody. So and so doesn't do enough, So and so does too much. Reuters is a bunch of boobs for being involved with a video game. Reuters is a bunch of boobs for NOT being involved with a video game.

In fact, techdirt doesn't go into why this won't work just there opinions about what the motivations are. No where does techdirt say, "hey here is a company that understands the importance of people's online and offline worlds and how blurred they are becoming."

I have far too many interesting things to do in my First Life to be interested in a Second Life however its seems that anybody who gets involved in this video game (commence flaming that its "not a video game") is automatically a subject of derision with Techdirt.

See below links for techdirt, uh, dirt, of course one of them doesn't even make sense, I think techdirt put Second Life in the title just to get hits.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060814/133256.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060808/ 0843212.shtml

Maybe I expect too much
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2006 @ 9:12am
  
  Re: techwhine
  Maybe you ought to get a life.
  
  Where did Techdirt put Reuters or players of SL down? Copy and paste the sentence.
  I have far too many interesting things to do in my First Life to be interested in a Second Life...
  Like searching for that elusive asian midget amputee porn in Mom's basement? Loser.
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- Faz, 16 Oct 2006 @ 9:32am
  
  Re: techwhine
  "I have far too many interesting things to do in my First Life to be interested in a Second Life "
  
  come on... u read the article and whine about it... now does it not make u the same as the forum you are hating on.. about whining
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2006 @ 10:01am
  
  Re: techwhine
  Despite all your obvious intelligence, you should still probably learn the difference between their, there, and they're.
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2006 @ 11:49am
  
  Re: techwhine
  What the hell are you whining about? It's TechDIRT dumbass - it's supposed to be about the dirt.
  
  I think you should go here for your happy stories: here
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