A visit to John Edwards' virtual hang-out
At TechPresident, Ruby Sinreich offers a pretty in-depth of John Edwards' space on Second Life. Somehow the campaigns think it's important this year to play with all the geeky toys and Second Life is not exception.
Sinreich visited the day Elizabeth Edwards' cancer recurrence was announced, so the space sports a photo of her near the entrance. Otherwise the space is bucolic and beachy, located near Laguna Beach. Apparently, an earlier location closer to the action was vandalized by Bush '08 tag-sporting attackers. An Edwards staffer wrote at the time:
Shortly before midnight (CST) on Monday, February 26, a group of republican Second Life users, some sporting "Bush '08" tags, vandalized the John Edwards Second Life HQ. They plastered the area with Marxist/Lenninist posters and slogans, a feces spewing obsenity, and a photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harrassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obsenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular.
Sinreich found the space oddly peaceful, hardly appropriate for a campaign hang-out. This is no Clinton war room.
Given that I panned the Hillary Clinton presence in SL, I am surprised to tell you that I liked Edwards space even less. It did not give me the sense of what or who his campaign is about. The beach setting suggests a sort of luxury and leisure that are not associated with the candidate's image or policies. However, my traveling companion disagreed, saying the space felt friendly and comfortable to him.We spent some time talking to Redaktisto Noble who is the main John Edwards organizer/manager in Second Life. He had this to day: "My personal goal is to prove to the campaign that SL can be a valuable medium for a serious campaign... I would love to have at least one, maybe several, "debates" among supporters of the various campaigns. But first they have to get a platform! :) ... I would reemphasize that we want group members to bring their ideas and add to what we have here."