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!
GlobeHoppin 
Hi Andrew,
It looks like LL changed the machinima, as it doesn’t mention NASA CoLab anymore. Glad it was corrected and the credit when to ILM, but too bad they didn’t show anything on NASA CoLab or Explorer Island and mention NASA!
–Robbie
Heh well that’s kind of silly… they removed most of the NASA CoLab island footage, though I think that there is still a clip of our Victoria Crater in there… I wish they would show and credit BOTH NASA and ISM. Ah well!