3pointD.com

I didn’t think the link was going live until later today, but del.icio.us user mzn apparently found a way to drill down to it (which I just spotted on the excellent SL aggregator site, World of SL). What is it? It’s my story on MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach in the February issue of Wired magazine, on newsstands now. It covers VLB and a couple of other virtual worlds MTV has in the works, and notes that the highest levels of the company, including Viacom execs, are ready to throw more money at virtual worlds. This is the new kind of media convergence that’s only going to gather speed in coming years. With Les Moonves of CBS all excited about virtual worlds, as well as the other broadcast networks and people like Disney jumping into the pool, it seems only a matter of time before virtual world integrations are the norm. Of course, it could still all go south, but there aren’t many signs of that happening, while there are a lot of indications of two important things: that companies want to be in these spaces, and to offer them in entertaining ways; and that audiences enjoy them and will only flock to them in increasing numbers. Tune in, or — just keep watching your boring old flat TV, I guess.