This story is a little off topic, but just too bizarre and funny to pass up, so I am going to make it and then add an educational twist to the end.

I’ve made posts before about the over-hyped and over-reported Second Life. Aaron Wall wrote a post recently that applies perfectly to what Second Life has done “Leveraging Statistics to Dupe the Mainstream Media for Public Relations.”

From ZDNet:

“The issue has surfaced after the avatar Anshe Chung (real name Ailin Graef) was attacked by animated flying penises during a virtual interview with CNET news, conducted in their Second Life bureau last month. A video of the attack surfaced on YouTube, and was then taken town after Anshe Chung Studios filed a DMCA complaint.”

Cheap & free publicity is a critical key to entrepreneurial success, online and off. I suggest every time you see an attention-grabbing story you pay close attention to the factors that got it there. In this case an odd event combined with a controversial DMCA complaint snagged two audiences — despite making one angry it managed to build backlinks and mindshare for a virtual business owner.