Electric Sheep Scores CSI Storyline

An episode of CSI New York airing on October 24^th will move from the real world into Second Life to solve the crimes:

CSI: NY Jumps Into Second Life

The Electric Sheep company has developed a streamlined SL viewer to bring the SL experience to the masses, while flattening out the learning curve. This new viewer has been licensed by Linden Lab. The viewer is called ‘OnRez’:

The Electric Sheep Company Unveils New Viewer for Second Life

Key OnRez features:

• Redesigned interface to improve the user’s experience
• Built-in search, shopping, and virtual currency purchasing services from the OnRez software suite
• Improved location navigation allowing users to easily ‘jump back and forth’ among Second Life sites, just as they do on the Web
• Improved integration and browsing of the Web from inside the virtual world

The viewer will be used to go online in Second Life and solve a crime related to the episode. The storyline will continue until a second show in February. Here’s a preview of what’s coming in CSI:

Preview video of CSI: NY Second Life Virtual Experience

You need to register to use OnRez. The Electric Sheep Company has set up a page to collect email addresses for notification when it is available for downlond:

OnRez Second Life Viewer Email Notification Registration

I’ll add more info as I find it for this interesting new blending of TV and virtual worlds. It will be interesting to see how this is accepted by the viewers of CSI. This is coming close on the heels of the Turner Broadcasting announcement of a partnership with Kaneva to develop virtual environments based on their TV shows. And of course, the first out of the gates was MTV with their Virtual Hills and Virtual Laguna There.com virtual worlds. Might we be seeing a new trend here, a mainstreaming of virtual worlds with prime time TV?