The real thing

Cassandra is proud to announce that her alter ego, Beth Renneisen, was a finalist in the 2010 Knight Foundation News Challenge. Her proposal for News in a Virtual World was one of 30 that made the cut from 2,750 entries. Unfortunately, she was not awarded the grant, but is shopping the proposal around for other sources of funding. For a look at an example of a virtual news experiment at San Francisco State University, see the Virtual Worlds segment of her Masters thesis at gnusart.com/thesis.

Perhaps virtual reporters, like the ski conditions bot above, will eventually find a place on the Web.

Cassandra has been lazy

She just hasn't been able to keep up the posts over the summer, but she'll soon be presenting her meteor experiment, so stay tuned!

A Veederism

In response to students' "Battle of the Appliances" virtual experiment:

"Home ec was a cruel joke."

– Jane V.

Meteor Project Final document link

http://treasurephotography.com/virtual-news.pdf

Newspapers IN Second Life?

Cassandra may be on vacation, but Beth is hard at work on her SL video for her Master's thesis. From concept to complete news presentation has been an adventure, and a study in ginormous file management. My computer has been working harder than anyone!

I have also researched "news" IN SL specifically for members, and have found a  SL Newspaper at http://sl-newspaper.com. 

Stay tuned, I have an e-mail in to the owner of sl-newspaper ...

Cassandra is on vacation

After a tough year of virtual reporting assignments, Cassandra is piloting her plane to an undisclosed tropical island for some much-needed R&R. 

Meteor project visits San Jose

Here is our virtual display at he San Jose Tech Museum's Creative Engines exhibit and competition. I picked a spot with a nice view of the mountains. Maybe someone important will think this is a good idea!