The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse

It shouldn't be a surprise that online virtual communities like Second Life—where recently the hows and whys of having a unicorn baby were all the rage—have their own virtual newspapers and blogs. The very real world constraints such organs have come under, however, may surprise more than a few readers. University of Michigan philosophy professor Peter Ludlow has written and edited various monographs on language and cyberspace; under the name of his online avatar, Urizenus Sklar, Ludlow muckraked within the Sims Online community and was later publisher of SL 's Herald . He here teams with freelance journalist Wallace, who has had his own adventures covering online virtual communities, to give a blow-by-blow account of how Urizenus Sklar's writings caused a big stir online, with ramifications that are still unfolding. With wit and a real sense of suspense, the two dramatize the “killing” of Urizenus (“Uri”) in late 2003, and then work backward, giving a history of online multiuser environments, providing a vivid sense of what it is to participate in them, detailing the larger forces at work in the conflicts that killed Urizenus, and urgently raising still very unresolved issues about law, censorship and cyberspace. Anyone with even the slightest curiosity about online virtual communities will find it engrossing. (Oct.)