• http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/04/benevolent_conspiracy.html

Ben Vershbow from the Institute for the Future of the Book has posted a nifty review/preview of the World Without Oil, the social consciousness-raising ARG (alternate reality game) that recently launched. His posting is interesting both for what it has to say about ARGs and their power as a narrative form, but also for its critique of Second Life. He writes:

"This couldn't be more unlike the whole Second Life phenomenon (which, as you may have noticed, we've barely covered here). Instead of building a one-to-one simulacrum of the actual world (yeah yeah, you can fly, big whoop), this takes the actual world and tilts it — reinterprets it. There's imagination happening here. "

As others have suggested elsewhere, ARGs represent a powerful new platform for creating engaging experiences that could be harnassed (in the case of World Without Oil) for social good, or (and here I know of no examples but would love to be corrected in the comments section below) education.