A Brave New World for TV? Virtually

From the New York Times

Vincent Tibbett is precisely the sort of well-connected cultural liaison any emerging filmmaker should want to know. But if Mr. Tibbett seems a bit harder to pin down, that’s because he doesn’t exist on our plane of reality. He is an electronic avatar found only in Second Life, the popular online virtual community. Just six months old, Mr. Tibbett is one experiment in the Sundance Channel’s larger exploration of Internet-based virtual reality, And he is not alone. In the last year broadcast networks, cable channels and television content providers have all set up camp in virtual communities, where they hope that viewers who have forsaken television for computer screens might rediscover their programming online.

Thanks to Barry Pretzel for the post