Whilst doing a fly-around looking for some land I came across a new area which looks like it’s about to be released, and it has an aussie flavour to say the least:

Reuters is reporting that the US Congress will have a presence in SL, and it got me to thinking about the upcoming political cycle in Australia. New South Wales goes to the polls in March and all of Australia is likely to vote in another Federal election before year’s end.

Which politicians (if any) would you like to see make an appearance in SL? We’ll approach the most popular suggestions in real life and ask if they’d be interested in joing SL.

It’s the time of year where reflection tends to come a little more to the fore. In this case of SLOz, the reflection is obviously about SL. The interest generated in SL in the past three months has been phenomenal, and recently user concurrence (number of SL users logged in at one time) has broken the twenty thousand barrier. All that said, come January 2008 will SL be any more persuasive as a social medium in the wider population than now? For me the answer is an unsatisfying maybe.

In an Australian context, our smaller population is a double-edged sword – the word-of-mouth regarding SL combined with recent media coverage will increase the aussie userbase, not that it’s possible to quantify that. On the other hand that same small poplation will limit the amount of resources Linden Labs will throw at the Australian market, unless Australia were to become the base for SE Asian marketing / support / operations etc. There certainly is no cohesive Australian community in-world that I’ve been able to nail down. A couple of groups exist that are either inactive or have a handful of members. One of the aims of this site is to increase communication between Australians – if thats one of the facets you’re seeking with SL.

As always, your suggestions and thoughts welcome. Happy New Year!

The shell of an Australian library is available and there’s a call for anyone interested in coordinating the project and bringing the library to life.

Check it out in-world.