As part of the first ever US Congressional hearing simulcast with a virtual world (it wasn’t QUITE mixed-reality), the House Telecommunications & the Internet Subcommittee held a hearing last week entitled “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium.”

During the hearing, Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab, played a machinima video that featured NASA CoLab in Second Life… sort of! While it was great to be featured alongside NOAA as a pioneering example of Federal government use of virtual worlds, most of the video footage displayed was actually of NASA CoLab’s neighbor island, the International Spaceflight Museum.

ISM, an independent non-profit 501c3 organization, was the premier space-related destination in Second Life long before we at NASA came along, and without their generous advice and countless hours of hands-on support, it’s doubtful that NASA CoLab would have become a thriving open public+government community in Second Life. ISM still has the most extensive and beautiful space-related environment in Second Life in my opinion, and apparently Linden Labs’ machinima makers agree. I do hope that Linden Lab sets the record straight next time they’re in Congress, if not before!

UPDATE: Well, Linden Lab not only corrected the credit to ISM, they actually removed the footage of NASA CoLab island and removed all mention of NASA, which was unnecessary… Ah well!