Here's another intresting link I found via BoingBoing. Apparently Sweden plans to set up an officially-sanctioned "embassy" in Second Life.

Already several large corporations have entered Second Life, including Toyota, GM, BBC, and NBC, to name only a few. This appears to be the first real-life government representation in the virtual world. It's certainly unprecedented in Second Life... although maybe not an entirely new concept.

I'm reminded of government websites on the web, way back when the web still had that "new net smell". Governments had text-only informational websites in specialized domains. The United States, for example, has the ".gov" domain. Canada has the ".gc.ca" domain.

I imagine this "embassy" will be much like early government websites but less useful. Unlike a website, for example, you can't read or download official government documents from Second Life. SL doesn't have the ability to display more than plain text.

And here's a question. If Sweden has an embassy sim, will that server be considered Swedish soil like its real-life counterparts?

Link: Sweden to set up embassy in Second Life