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Bringing news from new frontiers

By Paul Sussman for CNN

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(CNN) -- In an illustrious 155-year history of current affairs reporting, the Reuters agency has filed copy from every imaginable location in the world.

Now, in its relentless pursuit of the most up-to-date news, Reuters has announced that the world -- or at least the real one -- is not enough and it will be opening its first bureau in Cyberspace.

As of Wednesday Reuters, which has numbered Ian Fleming and Frederick Forsyth among its journalists, will be covering the latest news and events from "Second Life," a virtual reality world in which more 900,000 users live out parallel existences in a 3D graphic universe.

Adam Pasick, a London-based Reuters media correspondent, will be the agency's man on the computer-generated ground, filing copy on Second Life using an avatar, or animated character, named -- with typical news agency prosaicism -- Adam Reuters, the latter a rugged, muscular young man with a rash of designer stubble and a figure-hugging khaki T-shirt (whether Pasick actually looks like this in real life is uncertain).

He has already filed two reports, one an overview of Second Life's thriving virtual business sector, the other on the knotty issue of whether those who make money in their virtual lives should be subject to taxation in their real ones.

"As strange as it might seem, it's not that different from being a reporter in the real world," Pasick says. "Once you get used to it, it becomes very much like the job I have been doing for years."

Reuters will also be providing real-world news to the inhabitants of Second Life, thus making them not only the first news agency to report on a virtual world, but also the first to play an active role in the daily life of such a world.

"In Second Life we're making Reuters part of a new generation," explains Reuters Chief Executive Tom Glocer.

"We're playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa."

Described as a "massively multiplayer online role-playing game," Second Life was launched in 2003 by Linden Lab, a San Francisco-based computer simulation company founded by technology entrepreneur Philip Rosedale.

The closest thing the Internet currently has to a wholly viable parallel universe, it provides a graphic, 3-D format in which members of the public can create alter egos -- everything from a sword-wielding Amazonian warrior to a cuddly guinea pig, a homosexual triceratops to a high-flying Wall Street trader.

You can purchase a house, set up a business, make friends, have sex, hold down a job, build a community, give birth -- everything you might do in the real world, and quite a few things you probably wouldn't (flying to Mars, ruling a planet and metamorphosing into a slick of killer blancmange are just a few of the many imaginative scenarios that have been played out on the site).

As Philip Rosedale has said: "I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."

While it echoes other simulation games, particularly the iconic "SimCity" and "World of Warcraft," the main inspiration for Second Life is the "Metaverse," a fictional virtual reality environment featured in Neal Stephenson's 1992 sci-fi novel "Snow Crash."

Getting set up on Second Life and creating an avatar are free. To become a fully active member of the site, however, and play a part in all its available activities -- especially economic activities -- requires payment of a fee.

Its popularity, initially in the U.S. and now globally, has been phenomenal. The site is growing at the rate of 20 percent a month, and now has some 900,000 registered users.

Unlike many virtual reality worlds, its popularity is not limited to teenagers and computer geeks, users hailing from all ages, backgrounds and demographics, a fact that has attracted the attention of those who would not normally be associated with such a venture.

Several universities have now developed a presence on the site offering virtual courses; U.S. politician Mark Warner, governor of Virginia and a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 has been interviewed in Second Life by a virtual journalist; and UK indie band the Hedrons have performed a virtual concert on the site.

What has really created a buzz around the site, however, and set it apart from other similar digital simulations, is the way its users have developed a complex, thriving and highly realistic virtual economy.

Using Second Life's own unique currency, Linden dollars, inhabitants of the site are able to buy and sell products that they themselves have created using simple 3D design and scripting tools.

Everything from jewelery to cars, airplanes to luxury yachts, weapons to real estate are available, with designer clothes currently accounting for about for about 40 percent of the business market (labels such as Reebok, Nike, Adidas and American Apparel are now offering virtual versions of their products).

"People are coming with clever ideas and competing to come up with compelling products," Rosedale says.

"Something like a pair of sunglasses or a watch, something interactive, these types of items are subject to intense competition in the marketplace, so those items are becoming more interesting and the prices are going up."

With the equivalent of some $500,000 changing hands every day, and an economy growing at the rate of 10-15 percent per month, the site even has a currency exchange -- the LindeX. Inhabitants can exchange their Linden dollars for real dollars (275 Linden dollars currently buy one U.S. dollar), and, also, to use real dollars to purchase more virtual Linden ones.

"What they're doing is monetary policy, there's no question about it," U.S. economics expert professor Edward Castronova said in an interview with Adam Pasick (or Adam Reuters to give him his online name).

"All the standard theories of micro and macroeconomics absolutely apply."

It is this economic aspect of Second Life, more than any other, that has attracted Reuters' interest and will form the real focus of its reporting on -- and from -- the site.

And while in some quarters the idea of a venerable news agency opening a bureau in a virtual world populated by dinosaurs and warriors is being sniffed at, Reuters are adamant the site is producing stories of real economic significance.

"Being unbiased, being accurate, being fast -- all the things that Reuters strives for, they hold true in just about any environment in which you would want to report the news," says Adam Pasick (aka Adam Reuters).

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