Story #4: Press Conference... forgot to post it earlier

Linden Lab unveils Showcase

Leading user-generated online virtual world, Second Life, will receive a new feature known as Showcase, which will act as a 3-D guide to the Web site, creators Linden Lab announced Thursday.

In reaction to Second Life’s growing active user population of what Linden Lab estimates to be between 45,000 and 65,000 users at any time, the company unveiled Showcase to help Residents explore new user-created regions within the Second Life Grid platform. The new feature addresses the user-concern of what to do while in the virtual world, Brett Atwood, Web editor for Linden Lab’s Second Life, said.

“Its purpose basically is to connect the users to this cool content,” he said. “It’s a creative community, yet many of those communities remain unexplored.”

Second Life is an online 3-D virtual world created and owned by its users. According to Atwood, it is commonly used as a social networking outlet as well as an educational tool, including universities, museums, classrooms, and training sessions.

“I think Showcase represents a fundamental shift of how users interact with Second Life,” Atwood said.

The new feature allows Residents of Second Life to teleport to locations and cycle through Resident-created hot spots by providing Residents a way to search content using sub-categories like, music, hot spots, fashion, and arts and culture, according to Atwood. He described Showcase as the equivalent of a TV guide for the virtual world.

“Showcase is quality-controlled and editorially-guided for people to make and explore new content,” said Atwood. “No longer will these incredible builds be lost to the digital space. It’s a way to surface quality 3-D regions.”

Showcase features both Resident-created as well as mainstream commercial sites. Many large corporations are beginning to use Second Life as a promotional outlet.

Atwood said corporations like Nissan, Coca Cola, and IBM have taken traditional marketing to the 3-D space. He said in a 3-D environment consumers can interact with the product more than a traditional Web site. For example, on Nissan Island, Residents can view existing car models, view prototypes and use a test-drive track.

Showcase has been in development since late last year. While an in-world version of Showcase recently debuted, the new feature is still in testing, according to Atwood.
Previous to Showcase there was a similar feature known as Popular Places. Unlike Showcase, Popular Places was a non-editorial automated list of popular places in the virtual world. An algorithm kept track of the most popular places, but according to Atwood, Popular Places used an imperfect process.

He said Popular Places became manipulated by Residents who wanted to raise interest in their locations. Atwood referred to the practice as “camping.” Residents were leaving zombie-like avatars with no user controlling them at locations to increase the locations’ ratings. “Popular Places was clearly not achieving the goal,” he said.

Second Life is not positioned a game. According to Atwood it is positioned as a social platform. “It’s not about winning,” he said. “It’s about experiencing, engaging and learning.”

With 75 percent of its users living outside of the U.S., Second Life is not solely a U.S. phenomenon. Atwood said there are currently more than 13 million downloads of Second Life, and its grid is approaching the size of Denmark.

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Ethics Assignment Questions

1. I think Steven Smith differentiated between a legitimate news story and one that is not legitimate, because the content of the story would be ruin West’s career and have a huge negative impact on the rest of his life. Smith wanted to be sure that the story was accurate and fair or the paper would risk libel and tarnish its credibility.

2. They needed to go into Gay.com in order to make sure Cobra 82 was truly Mayor West. The paper believed if Mayor West really was looking for underage boys online, then the people of Spokane need to know. Because of ethics, Morlin said he himself could not go undercover on the Web site.

3. Morlin said the abuse of political resources, like the offering of an internship, was the real story. The sexual abuse scandal that occurred in Spokane in the past made the story more newsworthy and relevant to the Spokane community. Also, the paper was very interested in West’s political hypocrisy. Because the mayor was republican and anti-gay, the fact that he was gay was even more newsworthy.

4. The gay community in Spokane was hurt from the scandal. It angered the community that he protected his “closeted-ness” by his anti-gay political views. Gays in Spokane felt West gave them a bad reputation. The general Spokane community benefited, because it was more informed about the hypocrisy of the city’s elected official. Although West did not resign, the national news attention the scandal received hurt West’s reputation and personal life. He was politically exiled and the voters of Spokane eventually recalled West. He described the hypocritical double-life he had been living as a “hell.”

I think the outcome was worth it. While some were hurt in the scandal, it was the paper’s responsibility to report such a newsworthy story. The people of Spokane voted West as mayor under the belief that he was a conservative politician with a history of anti-gay political views. Child abuse is one of the most hated crimes that exists, and the mayor was involved with it. If the mayor participated in these activities, he should have been prepared to face the consequences.

5. I believe that as long as the paper does not accuse Mayor Lynch of anything, there are not ethical problems in reporting the story. The story should simply report the facts and leave the reader to make his or her own decision as to Lynch’s involvement in illegal activities. The key to remaining ethical in this story is maintaining objectivity.

In-class Research Exercise

1. According to the FBI's "Uniform Crime Report" Web site, in 2006 Washington State University's Pullman campus' top three type of crimes were property crimes with 200, larceny-theft crimes with 167, and burglary with 30. Other reported crimes were violent crimes (6), forcible rape (4), motor vehicle theft (3), arson (3), and aggravated assault (2).

Compared to other colleges in Washington, WSU's spread of crimes was very similar, with property crimes being the leading crime at all included Washington colleges. The University of Washington's top three types of crimes were the same as WSU's, but in much greater numbers.

2. -Washington house candidate Troy Kelley received the most political donations in 2006 with $305,599. Senate candidate Christopher J. Mar recieved $565,880 if political donations in 2006.

-Mar's largest donor other than himself was the Washington State Democratic Party, which gave him $46,615. Kelley's largest donor was also the Washington State Democratic Party, which gave him $42,974.

-In 2006, the Republican party recieved more donated money for anti-gun control regulations recieving $433,598. In Washington state the Democratic party recieved the most donated money for women's issues over the past few years.

3. First references to technologies:

Digital Video Recorder

Social Networking

Automobile

Feeding the Beast Questions

1. Who or what is the “beast”?

The beast is the news media’s audience.

2. Why does it need to be fed?

It needs to be fed because people rely on the news media as their source for the most important and up-to-date news. Feeding the beast involves reaching the public in order to make them informed citizens.

3. What compromises (if any) might occur in trying to feed the 24-hour news cycle in print, TV and the Internet?

The 24-hour news cycle can force media outlets to choose sacrifice accuracy and quality for speed and quantity. The Internet has made people accustomed to hearing/reading stories right when they happen, so TV and print media have to try and keep up as well. When trying to get the news out to the pubic as quickly as possible, some media outlets do not have time to find multiple reliable sources and amply fact check, so the media will have to rely on the trust they have established with their audience and run the story with a higher possibility of error.