Countering Jen’s positive impression of Second Life, a slightly more skeptical view here. Last week, Jon Udell talked to Jean-Claude Bradley, Drexel chemistry professor and Second Life science supremo about open notebook science, including a discussion about Second Life.

Jean-Claude has been using Second Life in a variety of ways since long before we ever got into it, but Jon is more skeptical of its value, and one of his specific points is to ask whether most things done in Second Life couldn’t be done more effectively using another medium. The whole interview is worth listening to and I actually agree with Jon to a greater extent – we’ve said time and time again, we’re not going to make Nature papers available in Second Life because it’s just pointless. Who wants to read a whole paper in Second Life, when that’s what PDFs are perfectly designed for? We also made some of our podcasts available in Second Life as a trial but the same applies: why would people come into Second Life to listen to them when they could just listen to them in their iTunes? Now, if we had a weekly playing of the podcast, followed by a chat with the presenter or contributors, that might be different…

I think Second Life is valuable when it plays to its strengths – helping people communicate. I’m sure that’s why Science Friday works, by having an intereactive audience, not simply asking people to listen to the same show in a different location.

Anyway, Jon and Jean-Claude have agreed that to see how SL is actually useful to people, Jean-Claude will take Jon on a tour to make a video in Second Life of all the science-y highlights and different ways it can be used. More news on that when I have it.