Thursday, January 04, 2007
Second Life and Congress
The Democratic Party has taken an interesting tact with the 110th Congress. They have spent in the neighborhood of $60,000 creating a Second Life version of the Capitol Buildings. It will open to the public tomorrow. It is supposed to have been set up as a bi-partisan space for sharing of information and ideas. I, for one, will be interested to see:
1) How many members of Congress use the space
2) Truly, how many will be tech saavy enough to actually capitalise on it--will it be the Interns who "ghost" as members of Congress?
3) Whether it starts out being used heavily and then drifts.
My friend Beth Kanter has shared her thoughts on the new space.
This could be a brilliant move on the part of the Democrats. While they say it is intended to be bi-partisan, the hype behind the Dems CREATING the space will surely colour the perception of it. This could well reach the 20-somethings who have never voted before. With all studies indicating that the younger you vote, for the first time, the more likely you are to vote for the party you started with in subsequent elections.
It seems like the Dems are set on making themselves relevant to the upcoming generation.
The Democratic party did not spend $60,000 or any money for that matter on the Captiol Hill in Second Life. That was the estimated value that Clear Ink gave for the hours they spent creating the virtual Capitol Hill and managing the event. Some additional underwriting was provided by Sun Microsystems, without any condition of sponsorship.
The Democrats didn't create the space - that was also done entirely by Clear Ink. Conversations between Rep. Miller and John Gage of Sun were the original impetus for doing this, but after that Clear Ink picked it up and ran with it (plus a pair of scissors).
The opening event featured the Democratic representative because it coincided with the opening of the 110th Congress under new control of the Democrats. It all came together very quickly, and Clear Ink decided to keep the virtual Capitol Hill area open indefinitely for ongoing, bipartisan participation and debate. All involved, including the Democrats, thought that was a good idea.
Given the practical nature of the schedules, experience, and so on, I think you'll see more staffers visiting the space on an ongoing and regular basis, but as their own avatars, not ghosting their Representative. But I would also expect the occasional visit from an avatar managed by the actual members of congress.
Will this be used heavily, then fade (apart from whether that will happen to Second Life, too)? I don't know - it's an experiment. I've already chatted with an avatar at the virtual Capitol who was with a federal agency that was trying to do serious demonstration and education using Second Life as a platform. He said that getting any traction or support was difficult because people had never heard of or didn't understand what it was about. He said this one event will open doors for more use of Second Life as an educational platform.
I think we all have a lot to learn from this start.
: 3:23 PM 
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