In conjunction with their purchase of a Second Life Island, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) dedicated a full Four Corners programme to exploring the world of Second Life. It was actually quite a fair representation of SL (at least, as I understand it, only having spent a few hours in-world); it was also neatly structured to familiarise viewers who’ve never heard of virtual environments with SL as it began with Ticky Fullerton’s (the journalist’s) signing-up process, and showed both in-world and material-world footage as she developed her avatar, checked out Orientation Island and eventually explored the people, the markets and the inevitable red-light districts of SL.

Also of interest was the way in which the programme was presented – it wasn’t just a 45 minute slot, but also has a substantial online presence on the Four Corners website. The layout of the extra material is a little busy for my taste, but the wealth of material is excellent – there are longer versions of the interviews with Philip Rosedale (Second Life’s US creator), Ted Castranova (a well-respected academic voice on Virtual worlds and virtual economies) and Clay Shirky (SL’s most prominent critic). I particularly like these ‘raw’ interviews as you can hear all the questions asked, something that regularly gets lost in the tight editing which happens in putting a 45 minutes show together.

The ABC, like the BBC, is not hampered by trying of extract every last cent for their productions; rather, their mission statement is to disseminate their shows as accessible to Australians as is possible. It means these sort of extended versions are part of their core mission, and I’m quite impressed with the amount online (my only gripe is that it’s all flash video, so not so easy to download – a concern if I wanted to use a few minutes of one of the interviews in a lecture!).

For those who prefer to check out a lo-fi version before spending the time watching the videos, there is a full transcript of the ‘You Only Live Twice’.