Mark Warner Has a Second Life
Last week, my friend Ian Wilson wondered on his blog whether the new website, Second Life, will have a real effect on the music industry. For those who don’t know, Second Life is:
…a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by 264,281 people from around the globe.
Basically, think the freak offspring of a drunken night between Myspace and The Sims. Not only do you get to create an online profile to communicate with friend (real and virtual) but you can actually engage other members in 3D for in real time. Who needs real relationships anymore?
So far, Second Life seems to have been a hit mainly among musicians. According to Wired Magazine, such stars as Duran Duran, Suzanne Vega and Talib Kweli are set to perform virtual shows on the site.
Now it looks like politicians are getting in to the mix. This Press Release comes from Forward Together, the PAC set up by former Virginia Governor Mark Warner in his quest to become the next President:
Alexandria, Virginia–Imagine a world where politicians tell the truth, focus on the future, and work together with their fellow citizens to solve problems. Forward Together PAC is working everyday to make that a reality. And it isn’t stopping at the boundaries of physical space. Tomorrow Governor Warner will become the first American political leader to engage in the online virtual world, Second Life.
Governor Warner, in the shape of an animated avatar, will enter into Second Life this Thursday afternoon (August 31st) at 3:30 p.m. Eastern to announce the first-ever virtual-world town hall on American politics later this fall. The Governor will conduct a brief interview with Second Life’s embedded reporter, Hamlet Au, and officially launch Forward Together PAC’s new Second Life group.
Mark Warner, as explained in last week’s Phoenix, has tried to position himself as the early Howard Dean in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary race. He hired MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong to lead his internet presence, launching a website “chock-full of blog entries and tags, audio and video clips, and podcasts. It recently began using the Creative Commons licensing system, which allows ordinary users to freely distribute content from the site.”
Now Second Life. Is this meaningful in the grand scheme of things? I don’t know. But by launching himself in to avatar form, it seems Mark Warner doesn’t realize that politicians seem fake enough to most people already.
