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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Creating the Embassy

When Sweden erected the Second Life embassy I could never have thought that the ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia would come to our company with the request to coordinate the production of the Estonian embassy in Second Life. But this is exactly what happened in early August. Now I am rather happy to say that the building itself is ready and the ingenious architect Scope Cleaver is continuing his work on the interiors.

I could have told you about the bizarreness of it all. Buying the virtual land, trading lindens, meeting the builders, drafting the concept, getting really nervous while waiting for the island to form... But the project was too experimental at that point, we decided to keep it low profile.

There has been a lot of confusion in the media about which country is really first to establish an embassy in Second Life. Maldives claim to be first. Sweden is often claimed to be the first too and they really are the leaders of virtual diplomacy in my opinion, especially if you look at some innovative approaches (just go and listen to the Wallenberg room).

What will make the Estonian embassy special would be its different focus and the fact that it is "official official" foreign ministry representation (Sweden has a sort of cultural diplomacy aspect with the Swedish Institute being the patron there).

Expect more information soon.

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