British Lord decries lack of second lives
David Puttnam, a member of Britain's House of Lords, said virtual worlds targeted at children are doing little more than to make them "think of themselves as not that much more than consumers," during his keynote at the Virtual Worlds Forum. Too many of them are backed by product-hawking companies like Viacom's Nickelodeon or Time Warner's Warner Bros. Instead of being fantasy playscapes that also instill an overwhelming urge to run out and buy Teletubbies plushies, they should be encouraging children to "exercise those same values and skills we wish to see them exercise in the real world." No more orgies in Club Penguin, then. We can top Puttnam's suggestion: How about encouraging them to stay in the real world and exercise, period?