Blogging

Netroots Nation Returns to Second Life

The Netroots Nation progressive bloggers convention, formerly Yearly KOS, has returned to Second Life again this year. Even though I live just forty miles away from Austin, Texas, where the convention is being held this year, I was not able to attend in person. However, once again this year, Netroots has provided some great options for participating via the internet. The more interactive and entertaining option is the Second Life venue which has been expanded and improved since last years SL conference. The other option is to watch the keynotes and sessions either live or taped on ustream.tv.

All the important information about the Netroots event in Second Life can be access at their web site, Netroots Nation in Second Life. For a complete schedule of the convention events in real life visit the Netroots Nation web site.

The conference lasts through Sunday, July 20, so there is still a chance to join in the fun, and I highly recommend listening to some of the sessions that have been taped on ustream.tv. Every session that I have either attended live, or viewed on tape has been excellent. The panels are chocked full of excellent presenters, and the topics are completely relevant to the issues and challenges that we are facing on a daily basis. More importantly, the sessions are not focused on merely defining the issues, they provide practical suggestions for positive action that everyday people can engage in to start working toward long term solutions to the issues.

Attendance is totally free and open to the public. They ask that you remove your extra prims before attending the big events like the keynote speeches to cut down on lag. There were over 50 avatars at the opening keynote speech on Thursday in the Netroots Arena, and the lag was not a significant problem. The audio and video feed from the Austin venue was not very good quality unfortunately, but the workaround to that was to use the ustream feed and to turn off the SL audio and video. That way I was able to enjoy the interactivity of attending the event with fifty other people while still getting a decent feed.

I took some picture of the fantastic venue that the Netroots folks built in SL for the convention to give you an idea of how fun it is to visit, even if there isn’t an event in progress. Stop by anytime (slurl is on the NNinSL site). There are always quite a few friendly and helpful folks there to answer your questions or to show you around. However, they have provided site maps and event schedule info boards everywhere so you can find your way around by yourself quite easily.

See you in Second Life.

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