Second Life Future Salon: The Second Life Herald's Peter Ludlow @ the June 30th Second Life Future Salon

Rlludlow Ludlow_1 Oreillycreature_1

“If Peter Ludlow is a journalist, then I’m a railroad tycoon whenever I play Monopoly.” – Jeff Brown, Electronic Arts - Vice President for Corporate Communications

The times, and the realities, they are a-changin'.

Enter Peter Ludlow, AKA Urizenus Sklar in Second Life, founder of the Second Life Herald. Mild-mannered Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics by day (pictured left), ground-breaking and oft controversial virtual worlds journalist by night (pictured center). Peter is currently working on a book for O'Reilly Publishing about his career as a virtual world journalist titled, "Only a Game: Online Worlds and the Virtual Journalist Who Knew Too Much" (pictured right, weird devil; see the Herald announcement for more).

Mr. Ludlow/Sklar will be a presenter at the next Second Life Future Salon, happening June 30 at 3:30 PM PST inside Second Life. Please RSVP your inworld attendance to jerrypaffendorf(at)accelerating(dot)org, and check back here or join the Yahoo! group for the URL where we'll be streaming live video online. Either way, don't miss it.

From a recent exchange in the Herald comments:

Me > [R]egarding Betsy [Book's] presentation where she asked for examples of a virtual world-grown brand transferring from one VW to another, I think I’ve got one that might count. Can you guess what it is? (Hint: the Herald, w00t!) [the Herald originally reported on The Sims Online as the Alphaville Herald]

Urizenus > Oh...yeah, the Herald is an example of a brand that has moved into a new MMORPG. “Yesterday TSO, Today SL, tomorrow the World!” That’s the secret motto that we don’t put on the banner.

We'll have to ask him about that at the salon...

Peter's bio from his State of Play 2 appearance: Peter Ludlow is Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his B.A. from Bethel college and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has authored many books, including the most recent Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias (MIT Press, 1999). He started an online newspaper, The Alphaville Herald which covers events in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. The newspaper is now called The Second Life Herald.