Shortly after President Obama was elected last November, I noted that two of his FCC transition team members, academics Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach, were involved with Second Life in its early years. That's Kevin and his avatar, Eli Gorham, at left; his Supernova conference in 2006 included a heavy SL component, which he described then as "an extraordinary playground... [giving] you tremendous freedom to experiment". He's still a part-time advisor with the Administration, helping craft a Broadband stimulus grant program. Werbach will be back in-world this Wednesday at 1pm Pacific to appear on the Metanomics show, for an extremely apropos topic: "The Age of Obama: Virtual Worlds, Open Government, and Policy". (All the event details at that link.) Kevin tells me he can't discuss the particular policy advice he gave the Administration about virtual worlds, but I suspect he'll provide some great insider perspectives on how they're being shaped. Read more about him on his site. (Avatar screenshot courtesy Prof. Werbach; photo by Joi Ito, from his Flickr stream.)
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I will be there. I am so pleased that Obama recognizes virtual worlds, Web 2.0, digital life, etc. His girls must teach him tons. Will he ever come back in a SL appearance? We can only hope. Maybe an event/contest to dress the prez...
Posted by: Leondra | Monday, June 08, 2009 at 02:42 PM
I was there and it was crash-tastic. The interview was a complete wash since the video and audio kept dying. Snippets of topics: ipv6, World of Warcraft, broadband proliferation.
Posted by: Derek Arnold | Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 09:46 AM