Reuters Interviews Nintendo, Warner Execs in SL
Adam Pasick (aka Adam Reuters in SL), the Reuters correspondent covering Second Life, sends word that he’ll be conducting two in-world interviews this week with business heavyweights who might be of interest to many SL residents: Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime and Warner Music chief executive Edgar Bronfman. Both will have their own avatars and take questions from residents as well.
Attendance will be limited to 50 on a first-come, first-served basis, Adam says. A live video feed, including audio, will be available for residents to stream onto their own land, or to access outside on the Web.
To me, this sounds like a great example of a corporation (i.e., Reuters) coming into Second Life and adding to the culture there, rather than simply seeing what they can take away, promote or sell. Residents should like the fact that attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis, as well, rather than through the unwieldy mechanism of group invites or insidery lists. This way, anyone can ask about Reggie’s Wii. (Sorry, it had to be done.)
I’m slightly biased toward Reuters, having spent two years there, but the company certanly seems to get what’s going on in SL, and Adam, whom I had lunch with recently, certainly does. Interestingly, this may have something to do with the fact that Reuters CEO Tom Glocer has reportedly been poking around in Second Life for a couple of years.
Nintendo’s Fils-Aime will be interviewed at 7:30am PST on Wednesday, November 29, and Bronfman will be interviewed at noon PST on Friday, December 1. Further details will be available at the Reuters Second Life News Center, Pasick says.
Feeds
For those of us working during those times, do we know if the video feed will be archived for later viewing?
John
Walker, having dropped that calculated-to-impress little lunch thing, let’s hear details — where? and who picked up the tab? or did you go Dutch?
Also, I don’t get why this lack of a list is somehow less insidery. Those who have Adam’s calling card will see him on line and get tps and tp their friends.
In principle, it is less insidery, and I’m glad to see you accept that principle, but I wonder how really “first served” it will be given the real dyanmics of the friendship lists.
I’m also not exactly understanding how this is an add-on and not a take-away.
These business heavyweights get yet another form of media to sell their products, neither of which are in SL as such, although I suppose the Regina Spektor thing counts as a freebie.
They take away a headline in Mainstream media that covers them anyway for having “augmented” with SL.
what do they leave? One or 10 lucky avatars who managed to TP on to this sequested island, like Charlie Bucket winning the gold ticket, get to rub pixels with the greats. That’s adding to culture?
Again, I”m glad to see you absorb the message that when it’s all take, take, take it’s tacky and off-putting, but you haven’t made the case yet for what is added.
John: Adam says yes, it will, but they’re still working out the details. More info should be available at the Reuters site in SL eventually.
Prok: Lunch was dutch, I had the rabbit.
It’s a plus because it’s an example of a news organization doing its job and taking advantage of the platform. Instead of just reporting on what’s going on in SL, Reuters is bringing newsmakers into the world to respond to residents’ questions.You could argue that any news story about a big corporation is a kind of PR (though I would not argue this). But if you were to argue that, you might as well go hide your head in the sand. What Reuters is doing is leveraging thse companies’ desire for a PR hit into more information flowing into the virtual world. Fair tradeoff, if you ask me.
This is starting to remind me of what was going on more than a decade ago, when musicians, authors, celebrities, etc. booked special appearances on the Internet, using AOL, CompuServe or Prodigy, and hundreds of users thought it was exciting to be able to interact with them and ask them questions. The free “swag” included wallpaper, photos, or a song to download. Now, in SL we have moved on to customizable cars. But I’m awaiting the day when these Fortune 500 Corporations move in to SL and invent not just another toy, but something revolutionary. If they all have great expectations for SL, then I do too!
Isn’t the Wednesday date/time when SL is offline for the update?