Greenpeace’s Second Life: Is the Media Giant Missing the Virtual Boat?

Commonwealth member Alan Rycroft of Peace, Earth & Justice News
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Commonwealth%20Island/84/209/31

(avatar Alan Innis) is writing a series of articles on nonprofit groups learning to use Second Life and its array of tools to advance their organizational interests and social goals. For the first in this series, he spoke with Greenpeace UK volunteers and supporters HippyJim Starbrook, "a geeky, Greenpeace volunteer based in Manchester, UK; and AniseDollopof Mayo, a mysterious journalist and longtime Greenpeace volunteer now residing in London, UK."

Read the full story here: http://tinyurl.com/57hk6m

Second Life - There’s a new, slowly growing media out there – virtual reality – and while Greenpeace has a beachhead, could they be missing the boat? Or, as in ages past, is Greenpeace hot on the scene, scouting out a new, virtual media opportunity to get out critical messages to save the real planet Earth? Greenpeace has traditionally been a leader in using the mass media to advance ecological and peaceful causes. Greenpeace established itself in 1971, by boldly sailing from Vancouver into the Amchitka Island nuclear test area off Alaska, aboard its first protest vessel, the MV Phyllis Cormack, exposing the US nuclear test program to the world through the mass media. Nuclear testing at Amchitka was cancelled five months after this first mission and the Greenpeace leviathan was born. Today Greenpeace has grown into 44 national organizations with an international coordinating office in Amsterdam.
Second Life is a commercial venture of Linden Labs based in San Francisco that opened its virtual world doors to the public in 2003. It boasts millions of “residents” (people who have ventured into this digital world) and in my experience has between 40,000 and 75,000 people (represented as avatars) online at a time.

People enter Second Life from all over the world and it is not unusual to find oneself conversing at a virtual event or gathering place with others from different countries and regions – I usually run into people from Europe, the United States and occasionally other Canadians. Nor is it that unusual to be part of a multi-lingual conversation that you can’t fully understand.

Second Life has attracted governments, large businesses, enterpreneurs, religious organizations, political campaigns and non-profit societies; all hoping to engage a significant, global, virtual audience. The Greenpeace presence, while quietly sanctioned by Greenpeace UK, is volunteer led by a handful of individuals who are committed to reaching a global, virtual audience and making a difference in the “first world” (more commonly known as the “real world” by virtual afficionados).