This is part of an ongoing series about government 2.0 written by Dr. Mark Drapeau. To view previous posts in the series click here.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” These words are no less true today, over 150 years later. But now there are many new technologies and tools available that can be used to measure and influence public opinion. One thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is how the government can use these tools to further its existing goals, and enable novel ones as well.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, known by most people as NASA, is a government agency heavily covered by mainstream news media – when things go wrong. But there is an interesting new experimental initiative at NASA called CoLab, the goals of which are to act as “advisor and consultant to groups within NASA, building direct and open collaborations between the public and NASA scientists and engineers…[and] use technology to facilitate public contributions to NASA activities.”

At the recent INTERACT08 event on media and technology held in Washington DC, John Bell of Ogilvy PR pointed out that great “emerging” brands like eBay, YouTube, and Netflix are authentic, adaptive, relevant, transformative, fresh, immersive, and social. So when Peter Gray, the NASA CoLab Program Manager, met with me on a recent trip to Washington, DC and said that their big buzzwords were “participate, collaborate, and innovate,” that sounded a lot like emerging NASA brand – and Government 2.0 – to me.

NASA CoLab is trying some innovative things to reach out to the public. There is currently a co-working space in Silicon Valley open seven days a week. Eventually they hope to host co-working spaces in major U.S. cities that are “the NASA equivalent of an Apple Store” as Mr. Gray put it. That would be very hip indeed.

Additionally, the “Luna Philosophie” series, held at San Francisco’s Yahoo! Brickhouse incubator (in coordination with the full moon, no less), is a series of open conversations on different topics broadcast using USTREAM.TV. CoLab has also participated in national conferences, and held Camp CoLab brainstorming sessions with NASA staff about how to change and adapt CoLab across the ten or so different NASA facilities around the country.

Leaving the real world for a minute, there is an elaborate NASA presence on “CoLab Island” in Second Life, providing information about all sorts of activities with an additional emphasis on having “launch parties” and the like (a great description can be found here). However, despite this high-quality (and perhaps necessary) presence, because Second Life has very few habitual users, I wonder about the effect it has had.

If the goal is to promote NASA activities, are there not simpler ways to reach more people? And if the goal is to make personal connections with techies and influencers, one might question the ultimate value of Second Life outreach in comparison with having scientists and astronauts at (for example) the recent DEMOfall 08, Web 2.0 Expo, and BlogWorldExpo events simply chatting with people and handing out CoLab swag. As I heard over and over at INTERACT08, sometimes “old school” can be a great tactic even as part of a high-tech strategy.

More disappointing is the lack of presence of NASA CoLab on popular social networking services, where it is arguably easier to listen to and engage with people. On Twitter and Pownce, they have under 300 followers. A quantitative breakdown for the last few months shows they are following zero people, posting once every 3-4 days, and not engaging in @ replies with other users. Ironically, a key CoLab staffer, Ariel Waldman, is well-known for her work at Pownce. The CoLab presence on Facebook (108 total group members) isn’t much better, with the main page still advertising an ‘upcoming’ event in June 2007. (It should be noted, however, that other NASA brands do very well on Twitter).

This is clearly a work in progress and isn’t yet an outstanding model of government “CoLab-oration” with its citizens. Nevertheless, with an agile, lightly-funded staff, CoLab must be given a lot of credit for experimenting with new ideas, reaching out to the public, and doing more than most any other government agency in taking advantage of new media.

As Richard Edelman, President and CEO of the highly-regarded eponymous public relations firm, recently pointed out on his blog, government public relations is a tricky business. Along the lines of his statement that, “Effective PR is about facts, but also ease of access and compelling examples,” the government could use CoLab as an exemplar, a program giving citizens access to information, and providing people with compelling examples of the good things government does every day.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government.

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There.com has long existed under the massive shadow of its more successful competitor, Second Life. Well, they’ve decided to shake things up a bit and give the Goliath of 3D virtual worlds a run for the money by announcing three new features:

Facebook Application

Facing There allows There.com members to showcase their in-world profiles, skills, groups and upcoming events on Facebook. It also provides links to There.com’s auctions, where members can purchase a variety of virtual merchandise, including clothing, vehicles and home décor items.

Lightweight IM Client

There.com claims that ThereIM is the industry’s first instant messaging tool that allows members to travel between its virtual world and a 3D instant messaging application that sits on their desktops.

ThereIM will extend the avatar experience for members by maintaining their in-world identity while communicating with friends that are in or outside of their 3D world. In addition, ThereIM will allow members to change clothing, use emotes, shop and instantly teleport into the world. ThereIM has been in closed beta since early this year and is expected to be released this year.

MAC OSX Compatibility

There.com will now support Mac OS version 10.4 and later. The Mac client interface will be consistent with the PC counterpart and was developed using OpenGL graphics. There.com expects to release a BETA of the OSX platform before the end of the year.

New Language Support

There.com has also announced that their environment will be more accessible to German and Japanese-speaking members, offering translations throughout the 3D environment.

Seeing is Believing

Here’s a screencast of what There.com looks like inside their 3D world:

Conclusion

It’s taken a long time for There.com to make these changes but we shall see if it’s taken them too long. These features were much needed, especially the ground-breaking ThereIM which will bridge the gap between the 2D and 3D worlds finally. It’s something that was going to happen someday so it’s not a shocker. The surprising part is that it came from There.com and not Second Life. There.com has sent a message to Second Life that they’re not the only sheriff in town (virtual or otherwise).

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Second Life Teams Up With IBM for Virtual World InteroperabilityVirtual Worlds London: Save 15% on the October EventSave the Date for Virtual Worlds Forum EuropeMyrl is a SocNet for your Virtual World AvatarsThere.com Gets a Curvy Coca Cola IslandGartner Report Warns Against Brands in Second LifeOn-Demand Streaming for Second Life

I am not an expert in virtual worlds but on the news tonight there was a segment on Second Life which I thought was worth sharing. The NBC news anchor starts by saying, "The Dark Side of the Web…is Second Life". The segment discusses how parents should keep their teenagers away from Second Life because of all of the sex, porn, drugs, and suicide that occurs in the virtual world. I don’t know about you, but growing up in Brooklyn, most of those things happened on a near-daily basis. The doctor in the segment explains that if teenagers participate in an activity online, they are more likely to want to do it in real life.

Again, while I don’t use Second Life, my guess is that you can find these things anywhere online even outside this "dark side" virtual world.

(apologies for the poor video quality)

More CN Coverage:
– Docstoc
– Scribd
– Twitter

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Just Leap In

20-word Description: Just Leap In brings innovation to 3D worlds on the Web, combining simplicity, next-gen visuals and physics, multimedia sharing and social networking.

CEO’s Pitch: We use the Web every day to check on friends, browse multimedia and news, and discover new people. Just Leap In aims to bring that daily simplicity to virtual worlds, on any webpage. When you land in JLI, we want you to feel like you’re smack in the middle of a social community where you can express yourself, upload multimedia, and link to friends - not in the middle of an empty island. And unlike other Web-delivered virtual worlds, we’re already delivering next-gen 3D graphics and physics to both Mac & PC, Firefox & IE.

Mashable’s Take: The concept of a virtual world in terms of a graphical, game-like environment doesn’t particularly suit my interests. Yet I find Just Leap In, a beta release launched out of Vancouver, Canada, offers a surprisingly rich experience in terms of interaction with objects and visual detail of most everything involved. What’s more, all such interplay is accomplished within one’s browser.

Now, it should be said that there is a software download necessary to browse Just Leap In’s dimensions. But it is available for Mac and PC users, and the time it takes to install said download and begin enjoying what’s been created is a simple matter of restarting Firefox/IE.

Gamers familiar with the mouse-plus-keyboard setup will have little trouble adjusting to the set of options shown in the controls panel. But it’s a bit unintuitive so far as the use of the mouse cursors is concerned. You may find yourself wanting to change your view with your cursor, but that cannot happen. At least it is not possible on the Mac side of the equation. Instead, you must use your keyboard to do so. JLI’s creators instruct the user to complete a Ctrl+click+drag maneuver for something called “mouselook,” but this process is evidently disturbed by a very similar Ctrl+click trigger that brings up a Reset/Set Start/Revert Texture menu of choices.

If you’re willing jump this hurdle, though, you will find Just Leap In an appealing alternative to Second Life and its competitors. It’s browser-based nature makes it something of a stunner. The physics engine is a treat, and visual detail again is an outstanding highlight. A look at the world in full-screen is pretty remarkable when one considers the setting in which the application is operating.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

Just Leap In company profile provided by TradeVibes

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Vivaty is announcing this morning that they are exiting the private beta stage and moving into a wide open public beta of their Vivaty Scenes product. Eric Eldon has an indepth review of the Vivaty product when they launched the private beta back in April. He also notes that the company has raised $9.4 million in venture capital funding.

It’s basically like Second Life meets social networking. The CEO says it’s targeted towards the 15-35 audience. I am in that audience and probably will never create one of these scenes, not even on a dare. But I could see how the kids will eat this up. Will it be as addictive as the Spore Creature game that’s hot right now? 

The application can be installed within Facebook or AIM currently and the company says more social networking platforms are coming soon.

Vivaty sent over the following bullet points on what can be accomplished using a Vivaty Scene:

• Choose a scene to share with AIM and Facebook friends
• Personalize it with hundreds of objects and make it uniquely yours
• Share your photos from the web, Flickr, and Facebook on your walls
• Invite friends to watch your favorite YouTube videos on virtual TVs
• Chat or leave notes for friends 
• Have a virtual party!

It looks like at least part of their business model will be around sponsored scenes. We received a few of these sponsored scenes but were asked not to post them yet. For their younger demo, the sponsored scenes could do very well.

Here’s an example Vivaty Scene inside of Facebook:

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