SHOCK: Reuters Joins SL Press Corps

Embedded Reuters correspondent Adam Reuters leaves Orientation Island soon

by Pixeleen Mistral, Herald National Affairs desk

Reuters sends help to mop up Second Life PR event overflow

I was swimming laps in the pool at the Aloft hotel friday afternoon, when Denise Levertov - one of the Herald interns - IM’ed me with an urgent message. According to reliable sources, Reuters news will be announcing a dedicated, embedded correspondent in Second Life early next week - most likely monday. The artificial intelligence agent script we recently added to the mojo wire in the Herald offices had detected a leak at Reuters and kept printing the message “Adam Reuters will be here once his avatar is starched and pressed”.

Our mojo wire’s A.I. script has been a bit unreliable of late - likely due to some lingering Linden Scripting Language issues or a slow asset server, but Denise said that even after re-rezzing the mojo wire, it was still predicting more PR hype for Second Life - and an actual journalist dedicated to the SL beat. I shuddered at the though of some poor soul condemned to covering an endless series of SUN press conferences like the one I went to this week, but everyone’s got to earn their Linden dollars somehow.

Once I hopped out of the pool, I checked the “search people” tab and found immediate confirmation - there is exactly one person in SL with the last name “Reuters”. A quick trip to the new account setup screen for Second Life confirmed my worst fears - “Reuters” was not on the list of last names that the hoi polloi can select from. Someone with an inside track at Linden Lab had probably purchased the name for about $1500.

On the chance that the newest member of the 4th estate in Second Life might want to go for a swim, I IMed Adam, but I guess the Reuters guys get weekends off - its been hours and hours and he still has not replied. Perhaps Adam is stuck on Orientation Island?

[16:13] Pixeleen Mistral: Hi Adam! welcome to the Second Life press corps...
[16:13] Pixeleen Mistral: I write for the Second Life Herald - www.secondlifeherald.com
[16:14] Pixeleen Mistral: can I interview you sometime this weekend?
[16:14] Pixeleen Mistral: hopefully we can get together in-world soon
[16:14] Pixeleen Mistral: I know where there are some great freebie things to get you started
[16:14] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

Returning to the pool for a few more laps, I wondered what this all means for our metaverse news scene. Hamet Au has certainly enjoyed special status to date as the Linden-sponsored “embedded journalist”, but if Reuters is going to devote a person to the SL news beat, does this mean that Hamlet has been GOMed? In any case, once Adam does get his avatar done and moves off Orientation Island, I hope he’ll stop by my yard sale - we have a really great deal on L$1 government surplus peanut butter, which is just what you need while saving up to buy your 512 m2 first land in SL.

Comments

[Fiend Ludwig]

Reuters story picked up by AP and CBC - here: www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/16/reuters.html