Today, Dana Milbank wrote this column about yesterday's hearing on Capitol Hill about Second Life. He had a very different perspective than I did, and I wrote this comment on his column:

As the business editor for the Second Life News Network, I also attended the hearings of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, or at least I assume it was the same hearing. You can read my coverage about it at SLNN.COM

The hearing I attended addressed issues of businesses like IBM and Chevrolet using Second Life. It talked about government agencies like NOAA and NASA. It talked about non-profit groups like the American Cancer Society and the autistics.org.

Issues about consumer protection, child protection and terrorism were addressed. Since this was a hearing of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet issues of broadband penetration, the digital divide and net neutrality were also key.

The witnesses that I saw were not goofy characters. They included an executive from one of the most successful companies in the emerging virtual worlds market, as well as a vice president of research at IBM. Half of the witnesses had Ph.Ds.

People have suggested that if you want serious news and meaningful explorations of the issues you should read at the Washington Post. If you want goofy characters you should read the media produced by people in Second Life. Looking at this article and my article, I would like to suggest that perhaps this is backwards.