This morning, President Barack Obama gave an address in Accra, Ghana, which was simulcast into both the virtual worlds of Metaplace and Second Life.
I, like many other virtual world explorers, logged into both Metaplace and Second Life, as well as posting to Twitter, adding pictures to our Flickr photostreams and taking machinima video of the event. Just another day in the Metaverse.
All told, about 100 or so folks across worlds participated in this experiment, logging in from all around the United States, as well as a few folks from Europe and Africa. It was one of these strange and fun mixed-reality events where you found yourself flipping between various windows the whole time, listening to the speech while chatting with friends the whole time. So much more engaging than watching it on CNN.
After
President Obama's speech, there was a virtual debrief with three
African experts: Ghanian musician DNA (Derrick Ashong), Ambassador
Kenton Keith and African studies Professor Timothy Burke of Swarthmore
College. People in Second Life and Metaplace could ask the speakers
questions as well as engage in back channel chat. I liked how within
Metaplace, you were watching a live video simulcast of the avatars of
the three speakers from within Second Life! Truly meta!
The event was co-organized by various virtual world developers and activists including In Kenzo, Frans Charming, Tori Horton, Keith Morris, Rhiannon Chatnoir, and many others that I'm sure I'm forgetting. Amazing job, guys, on putting together this multi-modal, innovative event!
See my pics from the event here.
