BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

MARK JURKOWITZ: And I'm Mark Jurkowitz. Every day, millions of people leap from the workaday worlds into the magic realms offered online by such multiplayer fantasy games as World of Warcraft and EverQuest. But recently, we've seen the emergence of another online world. This one looks very much like our own, and increasingly crosses over into our own. It's called Second Life, launched by Linden Lab, but created largely by the people who build homes there, open businesses there and party there.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: At the moment, there about 700,000 registered members of Second Life, peanuts compared to World of Warcraft's 7,000,000, but Second Life isn't a game, its makers say. It's a world, one that is increasingly visited by real-life musicians, activists and lecturers who address halls full of fanciful-looking avatars representing real people logged into Second Life. Recently, Harvard University announced that it had bought an island there, where it will offer classes to students around the world. Soon, a Democratic presidential hopeful, former Virginia governor Mark Warner, will convene a Town Hall meeting in Second Life. That will be his second trip. Last month, he held a press conference there. Mark Warner joins us now. Hello, Governor.

MARK WARNER: Hey, Brooke, how are you?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Why did you go into Second Life?

MARK WARNER: [LAUGHS] Well, I spent 20 years in the technology business before I got involved in politics. I was one of the two co-founders of Nextel, and then I had a venture capital firm that was all focused on telcom and IT. My sense was in the way people are forming communities, the way people are getting their news, particularly about politics, is changing from the old "let's just watch those dreadful 30-second TV slash-and-burn ads" that have dominated so much of politics over the last over the last 10 or 15 years. We saw the Internet start to transform political campaigns in 2004. I think it's going to exponentially transform as we move towards 2008. So the idea of going into Second Life and having my own avatar and a virtual world press conference, it took a little bit of convincing, but it didn't take too much for my Internet team to push me into taking the plunge.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Did you have any trouble selecting what your avatar would look like? I mean, how long did it take to develop?

MARK WARNER: Well, I've got to tell you, if I were like a really good politician, I'd say, I spent hours on it. The folks who work with me put the avatar together. I told them that as long as I was going to be a little bit bold here as being a political figure that was going to go into this virtual world, that they need to make me look as much as possible like at least a fairly boring-looking politician -

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]

MARK WARNER: - in terms of what the avatar [LAUGHS] was. And they did. I kind of, you know, looked like a regular, you know, guy with a suit on and a jacket and tie, and kind of stiff.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So you go in there to have a press conference, and you offer a variety of policy positions. What were some of the ones you covered?

MARK WARNER: Well, there were some questions about my overall views, kind of the frame of the political debate, which I believe is, you know, going to shift from the traditional left-versus-right or liberal-versus-conservative more to a future-versus-past framework. And obviously this session with Second Life was a living, breathing example of that. And I also talked about Iraq. I talked about abortion. I mean, I talked about some of the traditional issues. But in the midst of the press conference, I think, you know, one of the avatars started to fly above my head and - [LAUGHTER] - that was a little strange.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: A rather chaotic, almost surrealistic landscape that you'd landed in. I gather you got some criticism for submitting yourself to an environment that lacked decorum.

MARK WARNER: If that the criteria of how we were operating politics [LAUGHS] in this country - [LAUGHTER] - I'm not sure. [LAUGHS] You know, I just think about all the events I've been to as governor of Virginia. I'm not sure all of them had appropriate decorum.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]

MARK WARNER: But if I'm accused of kind of being a little bit more on the cutting edge in terms of how we use new technology, you know, I'll take that criticism.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is quite a community. It's a community that talks to itself. It's a wired community, so I guess you could see it as a portal into that vast Internet space that many political strategists are making a great deal of these days.

MARK WARNER: Absolutely. People are forming all kinds of different communities online. They are sharing their views. Many folks who are online don't trust traditional media. And, you know, I'm willing to, you know, within certain bounds, talk to all these folks any way I possibly can. I know when I got some of these criticism about, well, isn't this a little strange to go into the Second Life? – I kind of remembered back to the early '80s when I got into the cellular telephone industry, and so many of my friends who were traditional business guys would say, you know, Warner, you're crazy. Nobody's ever going to want a cell phone.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I understand that you're going back into Second Life a little bit later this month. That forum is going to be something of a Town Hall. You're more likely to have more fliers and people whose avatars are geckos.

MARK WARNER: If I thought this one was a little surreal, I'm not sure how the next one will be. I can only imagine I'll probably get slightly more bizarre, slightly more technocratic questions at the next Town Hall. I imagine I'll get some questions about bit torrents. I imagine I'll get some questions about different ways that information is distributed over the Net.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Have you heard about any other candidates who wanted to follow your footsteps into the virtual world?

MARK WARNER: I think they were probably deciding, you know, whether they wanted to throw stones at me for kind of going into this second world or saying, darn, I wish we would have gotten there first.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]

MARK WARNER: But, you know, my sense is that others will follow. And I think that's healthy. The Internet ought to be a place where there's a free flow of ideas and debate. And you know what I'd say to any of the other potential candidates? You know, come on in. The virtual world water is fine.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And if you were elected president, would you have jurisdiction over Second Life?

MARK WARNER: Well, maybe I wouldn't, but my avatar might. [LAUGHTER] Now, that would be interesting, to have the battle between the elected embodied candidate and then the virtual candidate. And if, at times, at some point they actually had policy differences, I'm not sure how we'd work through that one.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]

MARK WARNER: You know, stay tuned.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Thank you so much, Governor.

MARK WARNER: All right, Brooke. Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Former Virginia governor, Mark Warner. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER