Sky News launches in Second Life

by Hayley Pinkerfield, Revolution UK 03-May-07, 14:51

Sky News will launch in Second Life at next month’s The Guardian Hay Festival, becoming the first TV news channel to create a permanent presence in the virtual world.

The 24-hour news channel is building a Second Life replica of the Sky News Centre to give residents a behind-the-scenes, interactive look at its newsroom. Visitors to the virtual studio will be able to sit in presenter chairs, read the autocue and visit the gallery. This complements Sky News Online adding a live feed for users to view its news centre (see Revolution, May 2007).

Other planned interactive features include letting visitors create news reports, upload news pictures and video clips and interact with Sky News presenters and reporters.

Residents will be able enter virtual rooms to engage with news events. By recreating news stories, such as crime scenes and natural disasters, in a 3D space, Sky News aims to provide a richer experience and deeper understanding of issues. Sky’s editors and correspondents will provide exclusive talks to Second Lifers on major home and foreign stories.

The first interactive session will come from Sky News’ political editor, Adam Boulton, inviting an avatar audience in Second Life to put questions to his guests live on air.

Sky News head of news, John Ryley, said: “Second Life presents Sky News with new and exciting opportunities to deliver news and information, by allowing people to get even closer to news events. We hope that through our virtual newsroom users will be able to connect better with the day’s news stories, leading to a greater understanding of the real world.”