GlamStart

http://news.glam.ac.uk/news/en/2007/oct/03/cyber-world-induction-students/

The University of Glamorgan has taken the unprecedented step this autumn of using online gaming to introduce their new student intake to life as a University student. Interesting idea. I like the notion of online gaming being used almost as a communications tool, or as an educational tool, but I am beginning to question whether gaming still needs to grow up a little before it can really work for an adult audience. I hadn't played video games since the age of 10 or so (many a day spent playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Master System) until the Wii arrived in my front room this Spring. It's good, fun gaming for grown-ups (and not-so-grown-ups, I guess), and everytime I see the empty boxes on the Wii Menu I can't help thinking of all the educational applications that could feature there - and probably will do. However, reading about GlamStart both excited and also worried me a little. The concept is excellent, but the visuals used in their press release reminded me a little of Habbo Hotel - the online interactive gaming site used primarily by younger teenagers - and the tasks listed sounded as though they erred a little on the patronising side for someone old enough to be moving away from home and bright enough to be studying at degree level. Maybe I'm just old, and this is exactly what 18 year olds want to be "playing" with, but I can't help thinking that for online gaming to really work for adults, it needs to grow up a little.

Kent TV

Congratulations to Kent County Council who have become the first county council in the UK to fund the creation of their own internet TV channel for the local community - Kent TV. The quality of production is excellent and the concept is a great example of how internet TV can be used as a catalyst for effective 2-way communications between a public sector body and the community it serves. Let's keep our finger's crossed that it really works and the public do submit their own video comments and text comments as the site encourages them to. Such sites need not be unachieveably expensive to create, as Ten Alps Digital, the company behind Kent TV knows very well. Having worked with them in a previous role on the launch of their Public TV site, I know their committment, vision and ability to draw content in from other sources is a good recipe for success.

Virtual PR Agencies

This week PR Week reported that Civic and New Media Corp has become the first PR agency to develop an "integrated online PR and digital marketing offering" solely in Second Life - Civic New Media. Interestingly, at the beginning of August Text 100 also seemed to be claiming this same thing (Text 100 Opens First Public Relations Office in Second Life), but that's by-the-by.

We certainly know the importance of practicing what we preach, and other agencies and consultancies clearly feel the same. However, the usefulness of an online PR office is not yet entirely clear to me. Face-to-face contact and real human interaction are key to building effective client-consultant relationships and, in a virtual world where everybody bears a virtual identity that can be, if they choose, so far removed from their own that they may as well be from another planet, how can that relationship really develop? I'm going to make it a mission to pay a visit, though and see what I can find. Visiting their offices with my own Second Life virtual identity feels like the ultimate in spying on consultancy competitors! Wonderful!