The Alphaville Herald

Here Come the Kossacks!

by Urizenus Sklar on 19/03/07 at 10:42 pm

Hijinks and Revelry at the YearlyKos Convention, Now Coming to an SL Island Near You!

If you are at all involved in progressive politics you will know about the Daily Kos website. Employing an interesting AJAX powered social media software in which diary entries can be promoted to the main thread and in which comments can number in the gazzilions, The Daily Kos has re-energized progressive politics with its sophisitcated use of grass roots social software technology — what the kewl politco kids and Daily Kos fans (Kossacks) like to call netroots. Now reportedly humming along at 600K visitors per day, the Daily Kos (founded by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga) has branched out to include a wiki, a media company and an annual convention — the YearlyKos — and now a bigass mixed-reality event in Second Life.

Here is the skinny, a small SL Dev company called InWorld Studios (IWS) is going to be streaming the YearlyKos convention into eight SL islands SL for 4 days, including the the keynotes, panel discussions, breakouts, and the Democratic presidential candidates round table. They are also going to try a “mixed-reality” panel and breakout sessions where SL attendees will be able to pose questions in real time to Chicago panelists. Most interesting to me is that attendance will be limited and the entry fee will be huge by SL standards — $25 plus peer pressure to donate more.

I consider this to be a very interesting development for SL. If you’ve read Crashing the Gates, by Markos and Jerome Armstrong you know that these guys are as fluent as you can get with social media. I’m prepared to pay attention to anything they do at this point. Below the fold are some details from IWS’s Dire Lobo:

This coming August the YearlyKos Convention, held at Chicago’s McCormick Place, will be simulcast in Second Life over a 4 day period. The YearlyKos Convention (see www.yearlykosconvention.com) was started last year by Markos Moulitsas of the DailKos web log, one of the most popular progressive blogs on the net. Last years event (in Las Vegas) was heralded as a breakthrough in political activism for netroots participants. This years conference promises to be bigger and better. Already the YearlyKos has a commitment from the Democratic Presidential Candidates to appear in a Candidate Round Table at the YearlyKos Convention this August. Many other politicians, pundits and political leaders of the blogosphere and mainstream progressive movement will be in attendance.

IWS will be streaming the event live into Second Life for 4 days including keynote speeches, mixed-reality breakout sessions, online only breakouts and panel discussions and the presidential candidates round table. We plan to have 8 SIMs online for the event (with an option for 4 more if demand is there). All mixed-reality panel discussions and breakout sessions will include two-way participation whereby SL attendees will be able to submit questions for the panel in Chicago to address in real-time.

In what may be a first for Second Life, the YearlyKos Convention in Second Life will limit attendance and operate on a fee-to-attend basis. The standard registration fee is US$25 although we encourage registrants to donate voluntarily a higher amount to help support the project.

The YearlyKos Convention Registration Center opened this week and is located on Progressive Island. It can be easily found by searching (if search is working) for YearlyKos or DailyKos in Places.

Please have a look here for more information including information about sponsoring the YearlyKos Convention in Second Life. www.yearlykosconvention.com/yksl

We plan to create a series of pre-conference events both at Progressive Island and at YearlyKos Island when the sims come on line later this month. Events will include video screenings, discussion groups and other netroots activities.

Progressive Island is also the headquarters of progressive forces in Second Life. It is the home of the NetRoots SL group begun last year by Drew Frobozz and Ruby Glitter. They have been integral to various demonstrations and activism in SL for the progressive cause. Additionally, Drew Frobozz is on the board of directors of the YearlyKos Convention and is deeply involved in the YearlyKos in Second Life project.