SE: Sweden establishes first embassy in cyberspace

Sweden has broken new diplomatic ground with its plans to set up the first-ever official embassy in Second Life, an on-line virtual world. Aside from the novelty factor, the Swedish government sees this as a good opportunity to promote Sweden.

Hollywood gave us the virtual reality world of the matrix, now internet-based Second Life has brought us the ‘grid’, the flat Earth-like world on which web surfers – currently around 3 million – can become ‘residents’ and lead parallel lives.

The Swedish government has sniffed out an opportunity in this on-line ‘world’ and has announced plans to open up Second Life’s first-ever diplomatic representation. “We are planning to establish a Swedish embassy in Second Life primarily as an information portal for Sweden,” Olle Waestberg, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s Swedish Institute, was reported as saying by AFP (Agence France Presse).

The embassy would not provide virtual passports or visas. Rather, it would inform visitors about how to obtain such official documents in the real world and act as a portal to on-line information about the Scandinavian country.

Second Life has already attracted corporate interest and several household brands have set up shop in the on-line community, where residents can convert real dollars into ‘Linden dollars’ and purchase virtual products.

Further information:

• Sweden.se
• Swedish Institute

© European Communities 2007