A virtual world and United States presidential first took place last month when a speech by President Obama was streamed live into two virtual worlds, Second Life and Metaplace, from the African nation of Ghana. Even for a president as media-savvy as Obama, this was his most tweeted, Facebooked, and SMS‘d event to date. After the speech, a mixed reality question-and-answer session allowed folks in Second Life and Metaverse to ask questions of three African experts.
Although this event did not receive much publicity, it was important both for technical and the political challenges it presented, and particularly because it brings virtual worlds closer to the mainstream of American life.
You can watch an excerpt from President Obama’s speech as seen in Second Life on rikomatic‘s YouTube video of the event here (warning: the audio portion is not great)::
