The Story of My “Second Life”

Hi everyone,

Last week, Philip Linden was part of a panel that testified before a U.S. Congressional subcommittee meeting chaired by representative John D. Dingle (D-MI) entitled: “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium.” Philip was joined by:

• Ms. Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of Community Development at TechSoup;
• Dr. Larry Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, The New Media Consortium; and
• Colin J. Parris, Ph.D., Vice President at IBM Digital Convergence.

The entire session is available via the link above, and though it is worth watching and listening to in its own right (all the testimony is great, but the opening remarks are also very good), the reason I’m posting this is the machinima below, created by the powerhouse new media firm Silver & Goldie. (I’d like to thank Claudia Linden for sharing it with me.)

This is, without question, the finest machinima explaining Second Life that I have ever seen. The production value, shot angles, dialog, image quality, script, and overall experience are just fantastic, and perfectly suited to lead off a presentation about Second Life. See for yourself – click the image below, or click here:

Education is mentioned at several points throughout the machinima, but the focus is clearly on Second Life as a whole, and it does a terrific job of explaining what Second Life is, what it is not, why it is relevant, and why businesses and educational institutions are investing so heavily in it.

I suspect this video will be available on Silver & Goldie’s YouTube channel at some point, but until then, you have to enjoy it via the site linked above.

Hope this helps,

-kj-