Sweden is at an advanced stage of planning the opening of the worlds' first official embassy in the online community Second Life.

The embassy, a copy of Sweden's embassy House of Sweden, in Washington D.C., will provide visitors with information about Sweden and act as a link between the real and the virtual world. The official portal of Sweden will also be reached through the virtual embassy

"Reaching out internationally, to an increasingly selective crowd, calls for an inventive and progressive way of working with communication," says Olle Wästberg, director general of the Swedish Institute. "It is of great importance that we find our target groups where they are most likely to be open to our information, in their own context. Second Life is one of many alternative channels we ought to look further into."

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world and is built and owned by its residents. Since the opening, in 2003, it has grown explosively and is inhabited by 3,082,561 residents from all over the world.

KW