This is an interesting thread - and it brings to mind some work we've
been doing recently at 24 Hour Museum. I think a key way to view Second
Life is that it is one of the new 'meta environments' - in other words
it's a web within a web. Just like Flickr, MySpace and YouTube audiences
are being attracted to objects, terms, concepts or stuff by the tags
and/or values that others apply.
Meta environments seem to me to offer an opportunity for museums to
cluster content together - as suggested by Jane Sarre - in themed areas
perhaps. Questions now to consider might be: what to cluster? How to
cluster, and so on.
I'm thinking that webs within the web like Second Life suit the
increasingly 'niche' nature of digital audiences, rather like the way TV
audiences are now really fragmented as a result of the proliferation of
TV channels. They are also possibly an expression of user frustration at
the inability of the major search engines to deliver niched, packaged,
themed search results that make more sense of the web.
Jon Pratty
Editor
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