The Newseum:
The world's largest newsstand comes to Second Life

  by Pollywog Gardenvale

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Just as the cherry trees burst into bloom, the Newseum stands ready to open the doors of its long-awaited, new home in Washington DC. At a cost of nearly half a billion U.S. dollars, the monumental structure is seven stories of concrete, steel, and glass rising in the heart of the nation’s capitol to serve as a constant reminder that a free press is the cornerstone of democracy. It’s hard to miss.

At the same time and not quite a world away, a 3D digital reproduction of the Newseum is ready to open its doors to the international community that inhabits the virtual world of Second Life. Like its counterpart in the real world, the words of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are engraved in a huge marble slab that is slapped smack dab on the front of the building.

According to their website, the mission of the Newseum is to “provide a forum where the media and the public can gain a better understanding of each other.” In this case, the public served by the virtual Newseum consists of 518,947 Second Life residents from 166 countries, and includes 27,002 individuals who live in countries where freedom of the press is restricted. This opportunity was not missed by Newseum designers, who dedicated the better part of the third floor to a World Press Freedom Map that can be seen by all who enter the building. Although many news organizations have established individual outposts in Second Life, the Newseum can be said to represent their collective face to the world.

I first learned of the Newseum’s Second Life project last October when Echo Seigo contacted me to request a newsstand for an exhibit of Second Life publications. Ever since, I have been looking forward to the time when I could take a sneak peak at what they’ve been up to. So, as soon as Echo sent me a landmark, I teleported over and landed in the open space right between the Newseum and the Washington Monument.

The Newseum Sim

Although Echo and I had IM’d back and forth several times, this was the first time we had met face-to-face—
or avatar-to-avatar. After introducing me to Beth, Echo explained that they first met only minutes after he logged into Second Life for the first time. Beth is a visual artist with a video editing background, and is a highly-skilled texture artist. Echo quickly picked up LSL, the Linden Scripting Language, and before long, the two were working together as EB Creations, doing custom work for clients and building prefab houses. Echo and Beth have worked closely together for the past two-and-a-half years in Second Life, but have never met in real life. Beth lives in Florida and Echo lives in Ohio, but—for the past year, at least—they both might as well have been living in Second Life.

I was interested to learn how they were chosen to work on the Newseum build, which clearly has been one plum of a project. Beth explained that a friend of theirs who was a student at American University was working on the project for school, and asked if they would be interested in building the Newseum.

Before this gets any more confusing, let’s take a step back to explain who is who and what is what. Beth and Echo are the avatars of the real people who were hired to build the Newseum in Second Life. They prefer to use their avatar names, because that is how they are known professionally within the Second Life community. The friend who introduced them to the Newseum project is an avatar named Adan Christensen, who in real life is Glenn Luther, a graduate student and documentary filmmaker.

I later contacted Glenn to see if he could tell me more about the early stages of the project, and this is what he had to say:

“I started playing with Second Life two and a half years ago, and for a while, was talking with Echo and Beth about making a journalism sim. Then after a couple of semesters I found a teacher named Larry Gillick who got excited about the idea. After talking with him, I realized that there’s a whole untapped market of news consumers out there—the X-Box generation—who are glued to their monitors playing interactive games. Newspapers are not even a part of the conversation. This was a full year before Reuters came into Second life, and two years before AP. At that time there were only a couple of blogs with a news presence in Second Life.

“I was talking to somebody from one of the networks and he was telling me how people on their website stay an average of eight minutes at a time—which he seemed to think was pretty impressive. But people stay in Second Life for hours at a time and some don’t log off at all. It’s rather interesting. So my idea was to measure the stickiness of 3D worlds. You really lose all track of time, and before you know it, it’s not morning anymore. It’s dark and everything that you had planned to do is out the window. I was just fascinated with that.

“So Larry Gillick and I spoke to the Director of Journalism at American University, who suggested that instead of building a journalism sim, why not contact the Newseum to see if we can put up an exhibit in Second Life?”

Although their initial intention was to use Second Life as a platform to study peoples’ news reading habits, one thing led to another, as so often happens when creative people start bouncing ideas off each other. To learn more about the early stages of the project, see the following article: “A Conversation with Larry Gillick: Lost Eyeballs, Hyper-Local, Super-Niche Content, and the Digital Future.”

Glenn considers Beth to be “by far, the best designer in Second Life.” He also revealed that she is very modest and doesn’t like it when he brags about her, but he did so anyway, saying: “She is phenomenal and really put her heart into this project.”

The Newseum project is a mega-build by any standard—and certainly one that any of the top agencies would have loved to get their hands on. Glenn explained that although the Newseum was the first really big project for EB Creations, he chose the small start-up because they were the best people he knew and could really trust.

As Beth, Echo and I stood in front of the Newseum, I asked if they considered it to be a “photorealistic” sim (which might be a loaded word to anyone who considers the building and rendering of three-dimensional objects a form of art.)

“Oh no, this is not a photorealistic sim.” they said in unison. “We used no photosourcing at all,” Echo explained and then added, “Beth created all the textures by hand—but used photos of the actual Newseum for reference.”

Beth’s work reveals an exquisite attention to detail and an understanding of light, shadow, and proportion. The glass that is used throughout much of the Newseum is a symbol of openness and transparency, but also presented a quite a texturing challenge. By the time Beth had completed all of the windows, she had to go back and redo some of her earlier efforts because her glass-texturing technique had improved. She also ran tests to determine the optimal file size for each image, to make sure that they would be able to “rez” without causing delay or lag.

Every object in Second Life is based on one—or a combination—of the following “primitive object” types: box, cylinder, prism, sphere, torus, tube, ring, and sculpted. These objects are called “prims” and can be shaped and linked to create anything imaginable. Textures are then applied to the surface of the object to give it a life-like appearance. Then finally, physical properties, behaviors, logic, and scripted animations can be added to bring the object to life—or even to bring in media from the outside world.

By this time were ready to begin the tour, so Beth and Echo led the way through the revolving doors at the entrance of the building. “Wow!” I remember saying, “That's the best revolving door I’ve ever seen!” It is scripted to detect the touch of your avatar, and then spins around in a counter-clockwise direction at just the right speed. It is also just the right size—at least for my six-foot-two, long-legged avatar. And the smoky glass has just the right amount of transparency. Although I can’t remember the last time I stopped to admire a revolving door in the real world, Second Life is another matter because everything must be created. The door was made from the standard “box” type prims which were textured, linked, and scripted to behave like a revolving door.

There is also a real-time news ticker that runs around the perimeter of the lobby, which is another example of Echo’s scripting handiwork.

The Newseum Lobby

The Second Life Newseum has three floors and 50,000 square feet of exhibit space, compared to the actual seven-floor, 250,000 square foot facility in Washington DC. However, it is large enough to accommodate a group of avatars or class on a field trip or tour. Without paying premium prices, the maximum number of avatars that can be in a single location at any given time is about forty. (The new class V servers handle up to eighty, and servers can be linked to share connections to handle even more.)

Avatars have an advantage over humans when it comes to getting from one place to another because they can fly and teleport—in addition to walking, running, swimming, and dancing. The “beam me up, Scotty” style Teleport System in the Newseum lobby would be a big hit in the real world. All you have to do is click the exhibit number, and away you go.

The Teleport System

Exhibits and Galleries

Gift Shop
The first floor exhibits include a gift shop with virtual reproductions of actual Newseum souvenirs and journalism swag, including my favorite—the “Not tonight dear, I have a deadline” tee shirt. You can pick up some virtual goods in the gift shop for free, or order the real thing and have it delivered. The Newseum gift shop is one of the first to offer real world goods for sale in a virtual world.

Pulitzer Gallery
Next stop is The Pulitzer Gallery, a striking exhibit of prize-winning photographs, with videos that tell the story behind each one. It is fascinating to hear of the surrounding circumstances and in some cases, what eventually happened to the people involved. Of course, none of the photographers knew at the time that they were taking a Pulitzer Prize winning shot.

Inside the Pulitzer Gallery

Today’s Front Pages
The “Today’s Front Pages” Gallery is what makes the Newseum the world’s largest newsstand. Each day, the Newseum receives electronic versions of front pages from more than 500 newspapers from around the world. Up to eighty are of them are printed out daily and put on display in the real world gallery. However, all of them—at last count 612—are uploaded to the Newseum website in their original, unedited form. Although the primary purpose of the gallery is to promote a better understanding of the news and journalism, it also provides a snapshot of what is happening in the world on any given day. The big headline the day of my visit on January 29th was Senator Edward Kennedy announcing his endorsement of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Today’s Front Pages

The two online versions of “Today’s Front Pages”—both on the 2D and 3D web—can be used to illustrate the difference between the two platforms. Instead of scrolling through page after page of thumbnail images as you would on the Newseum website, the virtual Newseum allows you to actually go inside the web site, so to speak, and interact with the objects and other people who happen to be in there at the same time. It opens up a world of possibilities.

The 2D Website

Glenn Luther put it this way:

“I can speak eight languages in Second Life because I have a translator that allows me to talk to anyone. Quite conceivably you could have a conversation with people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, and talk about real issues such as nuclear proliferation. You could all watch a documentary about ‘The Great Firewall in China’ and then discuss it afterwards. It opens up doors that the Internet has not opened up before. People now have an opportunity to speak up. And because you’re a little more anonymous in this world, it helps people from some countries to have more freedom of expression.”

Stories of the Century
The Stories of the Century gallery reminds me of my grandfather’s den with comfy chairs and an old TV that plays actual news footage on demand. The current selection of Historic News Videos includes “Atomic Bomb Dropped,” “Watergate Engulfs Nixon,” “JFK Assassinated,” “Fall of the Berlin Wall,” “Women Vote,” and “Men First Walk on the Moon.”

Stories of the Century

All of the Newseum video controls are scripted to support multiple simultaneous players. Because the video plays locally on your computer, you may be watching one video while the person next to you is watching another.

Fun Stuff
In addition to straight news, the Newseum has a wealth of educational games, interactive exhibits, and opportunities for role play. You can try your hand at the news desk or as a live action reporter at the scene of a burning building. You can play the part of the live action reporter, the first responder, or even the victim if you want. This would be a great place to film some machinima. All of these educational resources are available for free to any resident of Second Life.

Emergency Response

Meeting Facilities

The virtual world is a great place to hold meetings, conference, and events, and the Newseum is well equipped in this regard. The Forum Theater is a magnificent 144-seat auditorium that begins below ground level and rises in a column of blue glass to the rooftop of the Newseum. The Forum is an actual working theater that is capable of supporting in-world events, conferences, and distance learning sessions. The seats of the theater were created with sculpted prims and include a selection of three natural animations: couchfidget, crossed legs, and natural sit.

The Forum Theater

There is also a smaller TV Studio that would be ideal for producing a machinima talk show or to give a presentation before a live audience. When I asked Beth and Echo if the Newseum planned to hold any company meetings inside Second Life, they took me to a conference room on the third floor that was especially designed for this purpose. Using a virtual world as a location for meetings and events is more than just a novelty. The cost savings on airfare and accommodations are very real.

The Conference Room

A Memorial

Although the Newseum is a celebration of the profession of journalism, the Journalist Memorial on the second floor commemorates those who have given their lives in pursuit of a story. There are too many faces that grace the walls of this thought-provoking exhibit.

Journalist Memorial

The 9/11 Gallery on the second floor really brought back the magnitude of the shock felt on that day. To see wall-to-wall front page headlines with pictures from that day was enough to bring chills.

The 9/11 Gallery

A Grand Opening

Echo and Beth are now putting the final touches on their masterpiece in preparation for the grand opening that is timed to coincide with the even grander opening of the new Newseum in Washington DC on Friday, April 11.

The project has taken a full year to complete and Beth and Echo are now looking to the future. For Echo, the real world is calling. He plans to take a break from Second Life and turn his attention back to his real world business for awhile. Beth has started a new major project and is also now associated with a The Loft, a high-end, virtual furniture store.

Glenn Luther fondly recalls the time he spent working on the project. “Web 2.0 applications open the door for new worlds, a new Internet, and a new way of thinking about things. To me, that’s really exciting.” The Newseum project starts to bridge the gap between Web 2.0 social networking and the 3D interactivity that is possible in a virtual world.

On their web site, the Newseum bills itself as “the world’s most interactive museum…” blending “five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and innovation.” So who would expect anything less? The new virtual Newseum is a gift to the world.

www.newseum.com

To learn more about the architecture and construction of the Newseum in Washington DC,
visit the website of the School of Architecture at Waterloo.

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