WGBH stages virtual concert in Second Life

Here’s a great example of a classical broadcaster trying something different in the new-media space. On Tuesday, May 27, acclaimed pianist Jeremy Denk will visit Boston’s WGBH to perform live in their studios and on the air. Nothing new there. What’s different, though, is that at the same time a digital version of Denk will perform in WGBH’s virtual performance studio in its world in Second Life. After his performance, Denk will answer questions from his Second Life audience.

In case you’re not familiar with Second Life, it’s a vast online cosmos where visitors create computerized alter egos, known as avatars, to interact with each other and explore the user-created world. According to Wikipedia, about 38,000 users are logged on to Second Life at any given moment. (The image to the left depicts an avatar playing the grand piano in WGBH’s realm.)

“WGBH Radio broadcasts well over 100 live performances every year, on 89.7 and on the web, and now it’s time to tap a new audience in an environment that’s beyond those platforms,” says WGBH’s Gary Mott, who is managing the Second Life project. “It’s thrilling to be a part of something we’ve not done before, in virtual space. The media landscape is constantly evolving, and it’s exciting to be changing with it.”

WGBH’s concert strikes me as an innovative way to bring a scattered online audience into contact with a performer and each other, an experience that would otherwise be unavailable to them. This creates community around music on a unique scale and with a novel sense of “realness.” Sure, broadcasters can also arrange online discussions with performers and provide an instantly updating transcript of the Q&A. But that model denies participants the opportunity to interact with each other. Unlike Second Life, it’s a limited community that elapses when the chat ends and that doesn’t empower the listener. The Second Life concert offers listeners the chance to make new friends based on a shared interest and accords WGBH a valuable status as the convener of that community.

This is part of what Web 2.0 is all about — dissolving the top-down, one-to-many model that traditional radio is built on. Stations ought to be using the entire collection of tools at their disposal to adapt to a more participatory model, and as WGBH shows, they don’t have to diminish their on-air presence to do so. If a broadcaster succeeds in weaving together its on-air and online efforts, both platforms can elevate and enrich each other. We’ll explore this idea more in the future — I’m hoping to talk to someone at WGBH soon about why they moved into Second Life and how they plan to use their presence there.

WGBH offers more details here about the upcoming performance and also introduces you to their Second Life world with this slideshow. Brightonia, their island in Second Life, features their digital performance studio, musical instruments for visitors to play, and the chance to chill out by a campfire while listening to WGBH’s live audio stream. Pretty cool! I’m not on Second Life, but it all makes me want to drop by.

UPDATE (5/19): Radio World ran an article a few months back about WGBH’s Second Life plans. The article notes that ‘GBH received support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to enter the virtual world. And it raises some interesting questions about how the concert might go off next week:

Ironically, the degree of realism afforded by Second life could pose problems for WGBH.

In this virtual world, there is nothing to stop the avatars from talking to each other during the performance, or getting up and interfering with the performer. Such is the versatility of this world, in fact, that the station may need to define certain limits into its program, to keep the avatar audience away from the stage; sort of cyber-security, if you will.

If I get a chance to talk with someone at WGBH, I’ll ask how they plan to deal with such issues.