Blabbering on BlogHud

The Bloghud exercise was very interesting. Well, at times frustrating because I discovered that you can’t use bloghud at all places, since my partner and I made many unsuccessful attempts to blog from Sky News but weren’t able to do it. My partner and I explored many different media hubs, including SLNN, Reuters and Sky News. I was very surprised, especially with all the technical equipment that existed at Sky News and wondered how often everything was actually used and what was purely for appearances. It was a little bit difficult to research these areas because I never met anyone at anyone of these places except for my classmates.

I am also fascinated by these media hubs because of overlap between First Life news and Second Life news. For instance, SLNN may cover SL issues such as SL Music, Virtual Conferences, and Open Source Software as well as breaking news from RL. It is also interesting how SL is penetrating RL in some ways. For instance, on the SLNN website, there was an article about a SL musician who was going to appear on MTV. SL has also been on a popular murder mystery show on television. Also, while researching Sky News online, I found this YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_jr6xjs90

This was a very disturbing short news story about SL and a place called wonderland where avatars can go to receive sex acts from avatars who appear to be children. The reporters and people interviewed in this story were worried about the RL impacts of these SL actions.

I believe it is beneficial to have media hubs in SL because SL is a community of residents who should be aware of issues and events that concern them. As well, SL residents have in common the fact that they are all RL residents and so should be able to access information about national and international issues as well. I also believe the overlap of news is necessary because one life could absolutely affect the other. I think these interactive news hubs are definitely a good thing, especially for raising awareness about different issues. Quite honestly, it appears scary to be that SL (like the rest of the Internet) seems to be growing faster than laws can catch up to it. For this reason it is important to have news sources to keep citizens updated about events.

As well, it is helpful to have Bloghud in SL because you are able to post your comments so that numerous people can see it instead of just talking to the people around you. I thought Bloghud was very inventive and definitely a time saver for individuals who spend a lot of time online and like to blog about thoughts, issues or events. It is helpful to be able to express ideas right as they are happening and have others be able to access them so easily. It is also interesting that you are blogging as your avatar and not as yourself (so to speak). This also shows how realities are blurring together. I am amazed at all the technology that is available on Second Life and how RL and SL are merging together. These media hubs especially display how RL and SL issues are combining and overlapping. It’s strange that SL is an extension of RL but then at the same time seems to be a world all its own. Also, now people are worried about SL becoming an extension of real life, so everything is coming full circle.

The “realities” collide.