Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley April 2007 Issue March 5, 2007 Virtual Utopia Proving Hard to Find The headquarters of a presidential candidate were violently assaulted in early February, with campaign workers beaten, windows broken, and obscene graffiti spray-painted inside and outside the building. As media reports of this attack were appearing in the Washington Post and New York Times, a small nuclear device was detonated in a popular shopping district. The shopping district had been the site of several drive-by shootings during 2006. No, these aren’t reports from Iraq or Afghanistan. These stories have been reported in major newspapers worldwide, but the events are taking place in the virtual world of Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com). Second Life is an online, virtual community launched officially in 2003 by Philip Rosedale, former chief technical officer of RealNetworks, a pioneer in online music and video streaming. Residents can play for free, but Rosedale’s L...
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