It is also much easier to distribute information on a blog or other site than to do it within SL. I certainly have nothing against SL publications, I like the idea as it happens, but (a) if you have SL access you also (almost always) have web access, but the opposite is not the case and (b) there are all sorts of terrific tools which enable one to aggregate information from the web which simply don’t exist at the moment in SL.

The best solution would seem to be some sort of simultaneous publishing system, presumably XML-based so that your SL Publisher Widget could turn it into a texture with magazine-style layout and your Blog Publisher Widget could turn it into a readable web page.

But, I must disagree with your assertion that “A blog or other webpage looks the way it does because, through the static window of a computer monitor, it’s the easiest format for scanning text.”

No – the reason a blog or webpage looks like that is due to the limitations of HTML as a publishing medium. You *can* do columns and wraparound text, to make things more readable, as many well established RL newspapers do – but most people don’t have the abilities for such fancy web tricks. And even when they do, they are faced with the unlimited randomness of fonts, styles, etc that people use for viewing website or RSS information.

Don’t try to assert that reading long lines across a page is easier – it’s not.

A newspaper is not laid out in columns because it’s the trendy or stylish thing to do – it’s laid out that way because, as any publisher, typographer or printer will tell you, it is a time-tested and true, scientifically proven, visually appealing and easy to read method.

If it wasn’t, then you would see as many different layouts as there are newspapers.

Some trendy magazines (like WIRED for example) depart somewhat from the norm, and can be quite creative in their designs. But even WIRED defaults to the common column format in 90% of their readable content. If they ran articles across the entire width of their page in every story (like a website), you’d have to read with both hands (or at least a finger) to avoid losing what line you were reading as your eyes dart from the right side of the page to the left.

On a somewhat different topic – I personally prefer prim based newspapers and magazines in Sl for several reasons. For one, it is a more substantial thing than a website that you will click through or PDF that will end up in the trash or lost in backups. A prim book is an actual object in SL – you can pick it up, put it on a table, turn the pages, allow a friend to read along with you, etc, etc, etc.

My favorite thing to do is to leave these prim magazines open on a table for passerbys to leaf through – this helps promote the magazine to those who may have never heard of it, and perhaps introduces issues covered in the articles that some may not be well informed on.

Blogs, websites and PDFs are disconnected from this world of SL. They are RL items that merely have SL content. I believe you, Ordinal, when you cite that most people you talk to “want rss or xml”, but the truth is, most people “want” a lot of stuff. People want flying cars in RL, but the fact is they’ll be smashing them into buildings, mountains and trees until RL would look like an abandoned, littered sim with no restrictions.

There are reasons that A LOT of things are done in publishing that the average joe does not understand the logic behind. It’s not up to the average joe to dictate how we do things – we do it because it’s the best thing, the right thing, scientifically proven, time tested and true formulae developed and refined over the centuries to save you from eyestrain, misinterpretations and brain-drain.

Sorry, but HTML, RSS, XML, etc., are just not as functional or readable as a magazine or newspaper presentation.

Eleven and six eighths inches and I just had a cold shower and saw a picture of Zsa Zsa Gabor in a 2-piece bikini, in case you were wondering.

/returns ruler to boss’ desk

- Appologies but I must disagree with your over-simplification of the issue here, your “whip-em-out-and-measure” banter notwithstanding. A blog or other webpage looks the way it does because, through the static window of a computer monitor, it’s the easiest format for scanning text. If it wasn’t, the standard would have developped differently. Now, if a computer screen was longer, plyable and could be held in your hands, a series of narrow columns would be better because instead of “scrolling” we could just move the paper up and fold what we didn’t want to read out of the way. That’s why newspapers look the way they do: it matches the medium.

However, you are correct on one point: it’s not really a discussion about journalism. It’s a discussion on typography. I don’t think we’ll really resolve the issue until we’re ready to geek out on typographical conventions for awhile.

I’m proof positive of this assertion. I might not agree with some or most of what the Herald writes, but at least it gives the SL community a better treatment than the MSM, which just reprints press releases. And when Uri and I disagree, he doesn’t threaten me with lawsuits or moral decreptitude.

“The “”only a game”" meme is of course not merely leveled at the Herald, but at anyone who participates in online worlds (and participatory culture more broadly”

I don’t argue against participatory culture. As an active forums member on several different website (and regular commenter on the Herald), that would be quite hypocritical.

The thing I argue against is treating a role playing experience like real life, or in letting your participation in a virtual world overwhelm your participation in the real one. I’m not against escapism, but when the place you escape to becomes your primary residence you’ve got a problem on your hands. I see that a lot in Second Life, hence my critique of it.

A last comment on the MSM: for them, and for the vast majority of people who don’t really play SL or who stay away from the community, SL is a platform. A business tool. Whereas I think that, if you look at the stats of who is sticking around and what they’re doing, or if you just walk around SL, you realize that the main SL market is people who really really like their roleplaying. And to report on that, you need to immerse yourself in the sometimes painfully awkward world of Second Life. The MSM and businesspeople doesn’t have the time or the energy to do it, so that leaves people like Dan Terdiman or Sal Palmisano free to just speculate with thought experiments that ignore–and I can’t believe I’m going to use this phrase–the reality of this virtual world.

Every single person that I have ever spoken to on the subject has agreed that the RL-related, PDF format used by the MM and the Avastar puts them off reading it – from web professionals to your average Joe Avatar. The former want an RSS feed and proper XML before they’ll even bother, the latter want something where they can just scroll down a page and read stuff, just like the sites of all of the RL papers.

Don’t avoid the subject by calling virtual newspapers last century remnants and “hard to read on a computer screen” – is a blog-style line 8 inches across your blog easier to read than nice clean columns? no.

I’m afraid you’re blinded by the flashing gifs and pretty blog ads that nobody clicks on.

Like I said – when you’re ready to talk REAL journalism – the down and dirty, get your fingernails under their skin and wedgie their ass up over their heads journalism, look me up. I’m usually busy pulling the wings off of fairy ad-salesmen who don’t sell their quota and watching them squirm on the floor of the unemployment office, but always happy to talk newspaper. If you think you can HANDLE it.