Broadcasting Live from Second Life: The Infinite Mind

"The Infinite Mind," public radio's weekly health and science program, has announced that it will begin hosting its program through Second Life in August. 

"The Infinite Mind" is the first regularly scheduled program to be broadcast live from a virtual world, complete with live guests both in-studio and in-world. You can check out its new studio space online here.

Why transition into a virtual world? Bill Lichtenstein, whose company Lichtenstein Creative Media produces the program, says, "There's a huge potential to bring people together in a dynamic, cost-effective environment."  Bill was also a participant at the Berkman Center's "Beyond Broadcast: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture," which examined the prospects for public media in, among other places, virtual worlds like Second Life.

What's going to happen during its first broadcast in August? Bill writes us here at Berkman: Working with a company called Infinite Vision Media, we constructed a 16-acre broadcast center and headquarters in Second Life.  Our programming will start with the first-ever 3D virtual radio broadcast in August.  It's a show we are calling "Through the Looking Glass" and will feature Kurt Vonnegut, Suzanne Vega (performing live in Second Life), Sherry Turkle, and others.  John Hockenberry is hosting.

You can read more about this exciting development in the Boston Globe and on Lichtenstein Creative Media's blog. Or you can take a look at TIM's press release.

If you know of other broadcasters making the move to virtual worlds, let us know by emailing amichel AT cyber.harvard.edu.