In a Politik Land

Most of us who spout forth our dodgy views on the future of the internet, web3.D and so on, tend to take web1.0 as our starting point, then sashay through the joys of web2.0 before arriving at our destination. The site I want to mention in this post, Politik Land, is an interesting example of this evolution. The sim belongs to politik.de, which my flaky grasp of German suggests is a portal for those interested in politics and democracy. You can watch a YouTube vid that gives a great overview of the site:



The portal offers a number of web2.0 social networking facilities, with discussion forums, groups and many other opportunities for interaction and participation (assuming politics is your "thing"). And all of this within a user-configurable portal that allows you to select and position the onscreen components. Given this high degree of 2D networking, the logical next step is to add 3D immersive networking - hence this island in Second Life.

The island itself is well laid out, light and airy. Branching off a central hub are 7 zones, with meeting areas of varying sizes, ranging from a couple of seats up to a large open air auditorium. A group of buildings have been set aside for use by (or to provide information about) various German political parties. There are quizzes, web links and regular events. I say "regular" - the most recent I found was November 8th (about 2 weeks ago) that involved a discussion with representatives of 4 political parties.

My lack of German rather hampered my efforts to extract much more from this island - however, you may fare rather better. In any case, here are my snaps: