Second Life residents, four-and-a-half million strong, will experience a fully interactive destination featuring adventures ranging from skiing "Mount Epic" to mountain-biking the Moab Dessert. A "big wave" surfing simulator will open soon and other attractions are still in development. Premieres of shows from The Weather Channel will be hosted in Second Life, showcasing an episode from the program "Epic Conditions" along with short clips of other episodes. New episodes will be premiered on Fridays on Weather Island and on the dedicated broadband channel located at www.weather.com/epic prior to airing on the network.

The debut of Weather Island on Second Life is another example of The Weather Channel embracing technology to reach weather enthusiasts. "Be it with our unique and original cable programming, weather.com, our mobile or our broadband efforts, we are constantly providing weather to our audience in new and innovative ways," says Debora Wilson, president, The Weather Channel Companies. "With Second Life, we're hopeful we can expose our brand in an original and meaningful way. We also see Second Life as a potential advertising platform for brands currently partnering with us."

Each portion of Weather Island will offer the opportunity to interact with other residents, take on extreme-sport challenges, as well as obtain factual information about the real-world landscapes and climates that are replicated on the island. The island offers a variety of dynamic weather effects, from blizzard conditions in the mountains to torrential downpours in the desert. These are the most complex weather systems ever created for Second Life.

A key destination on Weather Island is the Premier Amphitheatre, which will provide sneak previews of the latest episodes of "Epic Conditions," an extreme-sports program premiering on The Weather Channel in March. Residents can visit this stunning, outdoor venue which will host on-demand video episodes of the Epic Conditions program. Other smaller video screening facilities are scattered throughout the island.

The Epic Conditions portion of the Weather Channel's Second Life presence is the cornerstone of the experience, providing the most realistic and intense "Extreme Conditions" experience available to date including Epic Extreme Skiing, featuring Mount Epic. Also available at launch is the Mountain Biking Moab Desert Challenge, situated in a highly-realistic simulation of the Moab Desert. Rolling out shortly after launch of Weather Island is the Hawaii Big Wave Surfing simulator.

Infinite Vision Media (IVM), a leader in virtual world development and interactive experience design, partnered with The Weather Channel to create the Second Life presence. Drew Stein, CEO of IVM explains, "IVM has been in Second Life since the inception of the community and we can say with certainty that The Weather Channel is entering the community in the most strategic way - - from providing Second Life residents new experiences to potentially offering companies new marketing venues."