John Edwards' Campaign Enters Second Life

politics 2.0 writes "It may not be an official effort — yet — but thanks to a grass-roots effort, John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to set-up-shop in Second Life. Jerimee Richir, whose avatar is called Jose Rote, paid-for and developed Edwards' virtual headquarters, and, on a voluntary basis, is managing the in-world campaign. Considering that Second Life's user numbers are much smaller than other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook — aside from generating press coverage — will campaigning in Second Life actually win many votes? Rote says yes, and that 'Second Life users are a unique audience, in that, they are first adopters. It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.'"

*rolls eyes*

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Rote says yes, and that 'Second Life users are a unique audience, in that, they are first adopters. It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.'

Yeeesh! Smug SL user & lame* presidential candidate stories rolled into one! Thanks slashdot :-)

Second life is great to show your "internet savvy", coz the mainstream press (newsites, tv, legacy print, etc) can report on your 'internet presence' with impressive pics of a 3d world.

Second life is not great for the direct influence it has on the American public.

*the story, not the candidate, dunno about him.

PS. A comment on the linked article said Obama also had a SL presence. But with no backing evidence. Anyone on SL want to confirm/deny this for us?

PPS. Did anyone else think the photo [zdnet.com] of the author of the linked article looked 'shopped?

Right...

[Erwos]

Second Life campaign team says Second Life is important to campaign. Who could have predicted such an outcome?

This sounds remarkably like a Second Lifer who's gotten an inflated idea of how important their alternate reality is, asked the campaign team for permission, and then made something. The fact that the campaign itself doesn't seem to be investing money in this is telling as to how much _they_ think this is going to help. That's not to say an Internet presence isn't important, of course - but this is just a little too niche to matter.

More influential?

[6Yankee]

Considering that Second Life's user numbers are much smaller than other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook -- aside from generating press coverage -- will campaigning in Second Life actually win many votes?

It's not just about the raw numbers... Myspacers are spotty teenagers who can't vote, and Facebookers are hippie students who won't vote!

Re:The Next VRML

[LinuxGeek]

Mr. Edwards gained quite a reputation [washingtontimes.com] both in NC and nation wide as an extremely aggressive attorney [findlaw.com]. Living in NC for most of my life, I got to see many effects of his record setting medical settlements and jury awards on both the patients and doctors. If he can do the same things for Second Life, then it probably won't last much longer... :~}

Given the debacle of his "official bloggers"...

[Nino the Mind Boggle]

...I expect this will be just as successful.

no kidding

[cascadingstylesheet]

I think he has the right to live however he wishes, and his house is a silly issue to focus on, but it does underscore a lack of congruity.

Silly? His political wing wants us to all live in crowded cities and use public transportation all the time. He's against "urban sprawl" in the sense that he doesn't want you and me to have any space because it might "sprawl" towards his splendid wilderness vistas in his huge, private country living space.

His house is not so silly of an issue, if you ask me.

Wrong Platform

[WingedEarth]

If a candidate really wants to get elected, they should be using World of Warcraft rather than Second Life. WoW has a MUCH bigger community than Second Life, and WoW actually takes on important issues like war, diplomacy, the afterlife, and demon attack. Neocon globalists can satisfy their international bloodlust on battlegrounds, and cowardly Democrats can hide behind their tanks and pets when a confrontation happens. Disgusting political mudslinging campaigns can be replaced with a simple duel in front of Orgrimmar.

Who actually *plays* SL anyway?

[swid27]

This is a question that's been bugging me for a while: even if you use the non-inflated numbers, who and where are the people that actually play Second Life? I do not know a single person who has played it for longer than a trivial amount of time, even though my social circle is overrepresented in practically every other area of the online world. I find it strange that SL receives so much press even though the usual reason for unjustified media hype (being owned by a media conglomerate) doesn't apply to this situation.

I had a discussion about this with my friends recently; the best answers I got about Second Life are that it's bigger in Europe than here in the U.S., it caters more to the MySpace crowd than, say, the WoW crowd, and that, of course, it's mostly for porn anyway.

How can anyone like Edwards?

[xzvf]

At least politically. He won his senate seat running against a right of Jesse Helms pig farmer right after a hurricane dumped pig poop all over eastern NC. He ran for president because he had no chance of re-election in NC (not because he was Democrat, but because he was not representive of the majority of people in the state). The VP pickup by Gore saved his career. So you have someone with limited experience, trial lawyer, and pretty. Obama beat Keyes (not the best canidate to understate the issue) after a likely winning Republican had a sex/beating scandel around a Star Trek babe. Offtopic now, but I think it's sad when Hillary is the most stable canidate the Democrats can put on the ticket.

Re:Right...

[inviolet]

Indeed. Observe the Second Life guy's comment:

Rote says yes, and that 'Second Life users are a unique audience, in that, they are first adopters. It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.'"

Whenever anyone says "I would argue...", note that they have not actually said "I am now arguing...".

In fact the phrase "I would argue" serves the same purpose as 'really', 'great', and 'literally': it is a flag to warn us that the speaker doesn't fully believe what he or she is saying.

Of course

[rlp]

Maybe it'll work out better than his campaign's first life. Especially, given the two foul-mouthed bloggers who were: hired, fired, re-hired, "resigned".

I wish it would enter "Half Life"

[moeinvt]

. . .along with the rest of the politicians and their campaigns.

Re:Who actually *plays* SL anyway?

[vadim_t]

People play it for different reasons, but you could put it this way:

"Who actually *reads* slashdot?" Well, the people who find that sort of thing interesting of course. SL at its base is graphical IRC with scripts. Many people use SL for the same reason people come here: because they found a place they like and where they can talk to interesting people.

Where all the hype is coming from I'm not sure, but it's certainly not a bad place. If you're a geek, then there's a lot to tinker with, if you're a social kind of person then there are all kinds of people to meet and talk to.