Visit Your Local PBS Station PBS Home PBS Home Programs A-Z TV Schedules Watch Video Support PBS Shop PBS Search PBS

All Posts in Virtual Worlds

Archives

By Month

By Category

Contact Us

If you know about a story that we should be following, let us know.

Underwritten by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Digging Deeper

Reuters Closes Second Life Bureau, but (Virtual) Life Goes On

The sun shines brightly as I stroll along the curving pier above the water, looking out toward a beautiful island with trees swaying in the wind. There's a looming ampitheater festooned with signs for Thomson Reuters, and a series of concrete buildings that appear ready to hold important meetings. I stride in confidently through the doorway... You might think...

more »

Digging Deeper

Hype and Backlash for Second Life Miss the Bigger Picture

In May 2006, BusinessWeek ran a cover story on the virtual world Second Life (SL) by Robert Hof called My Virtual Life. The tagline breathlessly said, "A journey into a place in cyberspace where thousands of people have imaginary lives. Some even make a good living. Big advertisers are taking notice." It didn't take long for other mainstream media...

more »

Digging Deeper

Your Guide to Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are online three-dimensional spaces where you can interact with other people, collect items and build structures, and communicate via a virtual representative of yourself called an avatar. These worlds have been influenced by various science fiction writers such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, along with the movie, "The Matrix."

more »

MarketingShift

Marketers Grapple with Giving Teens More Control Online

SAN FRANCISCO -- A curious thing happened at the Hotel Nikko in downtown San Francisco today during the Ypulse Mashup 2007 conference about those wired teens. Yes, a lot of older folks dressed business-casual tried to look hip and decipher what the kids were doing online in social networks, on mobile phones and in virtual worlds. But on numerous...

more »

Your Take Roundup

Virtual Worlds for Kids Entwined with Real World

While the media has been abuzz about Second Life and adult virtual worlds, a bevy of virtual worlds for kids have been even more popular than their adult counterparts. Tween world Club Penguin has more than 4 million visitors per month, according to a New York Times article on the virtual world craze for kids. But I wondered when...

more »

Your Take

What's the right age for kids to start visiting virtual worlds?

Forget about Second Life. The big buyout talk in virtual worlds lately has been around sites such as Club Penguin, a squeaky-clean world catering to kids aged 8 to 14, and Webkinz, a kids site with games and virtual pets. A recent BusinessWeek article noted that Big Media companies such as Sony and News Corp. were interested in paying upwards...

more »

Virtual Worlds

Wired, CNET, Reuters Agog Over Second Life

A friend of mine who works in PR in San Francisco came up to me at a party last week, and was wide-eyed at what's been going on lately at the virtual world Second Life.

more »