WordblogJournalism in a changing world

Tim Adams of The Observer has spend a week in the virtual world of Second Life and finds it has “quickly acquired a powerful twist of designer corporate capitalism”.

Adams, or rather his avatar Kenny, finds land price inflation has hit Second Life when he tries to find somewhere better to live than his initial land grant. Not surprising with the population soaring from 876,572 when Kenny moved in to over a million seven days later.

He is, of course, not the first journalist in Second Life. A possible 2008 US presidential hopeful, Mark Warner, has already been interviewed by a virtual journalist in a town hall. And Reuters has set up there with a full-time staff reporter, Adam Pasick.

Kenny, finding his money running out, decides to become a journalist and heads off to Reuters’ newsroom to meet Adam. He asks if there are any jobs going for aspiring feature writers.

Adam says he will “keep Kenny posted”. Some things in Second Life are all too like real life.

The site secondlife.reuters.com was unavailable this morning but there is an interview with Adam Pasick on the Reuters Mdia File blog.