Altyrian View

According to the good people at 3pointD, MovieTickets.com is stepping up their Second Life offering. Now, you can view trailers, check show times and buy tickets by linking into the Web site through SL. Although people have been streaming trailers in to SL for a while, I think that this is a great use of the medium.

What I want next is for a major studio to screen movies – legal, porn-free movies – in SL. It’s always more fun to watch a movie with people. Maybe with SL, we have the option never to watch a movie alone again.

Here’s the link to MovieTickets.com’s SL build.

I was just reading an interesting post on Communications Overtones about the “Top 10 Risks for Corporate Blogs.” Risk number 1: negative comments. For corporate blogs that I oversee or advise on, this is a real concern for those that manage companies. Heck, Larry and I discussed the issue for this blog and how we would handle such comments. At the end of the day, negative comments are a good thing. Here’s why:

1. Comments are a two-way street. Take a negative comment and respond to it! What a great opportunity to speak directly to a “concerned” public. If this person has taken the time to post a comment, others are probably thinking the same thing.
2. There are tons of places to posts comments. Some companies don’t allow comments on their corporate blog so that there is no risk of negative comments. Wrong! There are tons of places to post negative comments; the difference is that you might not have a place to post a response. I’d rather have all of my negative comments in one place so that I can appropriately address them.
3. I’d much rather respond to a negative comment on a blog than a “surprise” question from a reporter. Again, other people are probably thinking it. I’d much rather had a heads-up on an issue from a negative comment than from a reporter who springs the question on my CEO. At least with a blog, I can prepare a good response that can be carried to all key messages.
4. Negative comments give your blog legitimacy. By allowing negative comments and addressing them, you show your audience that you take comments and feedback from clients seriously. It also shows that your blog is “truthful” in what is being shown to the public.

I’m sure that there are more, and it’s possible that some of these are off the mark. Fortunately, we allow negative comments so that I can be set straight.

Last week I started a “PRSA / Public Relations Pros” (I had a character limit on the name) group in Second Life. I invite you all to join. Just do a search for “PRSA” in the groups window. You can also drop me an email for an invite. Just be sure to include your SL avatar name.

Obviously, this doesn’t replace the SL Business Communicators group that I am also in. While they focus on communicating in Second Life, I want this group to be communicators who happen to also be in SL. I hope that someday we can have programs and such so that the group is active and provides some benefit.

Right now, this is not an official PRSA chapter. I’ve sent an email to PRSA to get their feedback on our group. I included PRSA in the name to make it easier for PR pros to find us. I was also going to include IABC in the name, but I ran out of characters.