Second Life

Strangely enough there was an item in this evening's London Lite covering the issues this blog is dealing with. On Page 14 there's an article about Hillary Clinton's decision to set up a virtual campaign on Second Life. It seems it's a full scale campaign 'complete with helicopter, cavalcade and posters'. The site has 4.5 million users which is a fair chunk of voters and well worth the effort.

I suppose we can safely assume that the coming US Presidential election will continue to build on the 2004 contest in its use of new media in order to target the online masses.

I think though that this will mainly serve to keep people whose media habits have changed from newspapers and TV to internet in touch with politics rather than to engage any new voters.

The most interesting line in the article I posted earlier today was that the online campaign in 2004 did not affect the eventual winner. That may change in the future but it won't mean that more people are voting.