A virtual victory

While crowds gathered at public rallies and millions of others glued themselves to cable news, many spent US election night online – and they had plenty of company this time around.

Across the internet, users were discussing, celebrating and bemoaning Democrat Barack Obama's unfolding election victory inside virtual worlds, on social networking sites and liveblogs and in online games. Others used techno-savvy websites to share their individual voting experiences throughout the day.

A motley crew of election voyeurs gathered to watch voting results pour in from across the country on a giant map inside Second Life, the online virtual world developed by San Francisco-based Linden Lab where pixelated avatars fly around and interact with each other. For months, volunteers have been unofficially campaigning inside the behemoth virtual world.

Before the election was called for Obama as polls closed on the West Coast, all they could do was occupy one another with chatter as they stood around and waited.

Several avatars gathered on election night on Capitol Hill Island, a virtual enclave that slightly resembles the real Capitol Hill, to chat about the results and keep watch on a giant results map in front of them. A woman with black wings stood across from someone wearing a suit of armour and a jetpack. In front of them was a lanky guy resembling Barack Obama in a Superman costume.

"Do we have the word on Ohio yet?" asked an avatar named Princess Ivory.

The giant map was being updated by the avatar Kiwini Oe. The man controlling Oe in real life is Steve Nelson, the Chief Strategy Officer for Clear Ink, a digital marketing firm based in Berkeley, California. Oe, who created the giant map in Second Life, was updating it with information from network news coverage.

He said he was not afraid to miscall a state in the virtual world.

"I can always uncall it," said Oe. One indication that online was a popular place to be throughout the election: Some users reported problems accessing popular websites like Yahoo!, which covered its home page with live election coverage, including an interactive Political Dashboard. In the last election, Yahoo! News had 80 million page-views on Election Day and 142 million the day after, according to Nielsen Online.

At the nonpartisan TwitterVoteReport.com, specially tagged Twitter.com micro-blogs about voting were being aggregated and pinpointed on an ever-changing online map.

The 140-characters-or-less posts, called tweets, were also being used to estimate voting wait times on Tuesday. However, as the results began pouring in, many tweets instead turned to celebrating Obama winning states.

"East Coast landslide for Obama!" posted Ellen Kanner in Hanover, New Hampshire. "Woohoo."

Several bloggers posted about the results in real time. Sara K Smith at Wonkette.com kept a eye on the proceedings and attracted more than a hundred commenters, but at one point contended people probably were not following along because they were already celebrating Obama's win while she was still "sitting at home drinking" and filling her belly "with stale popcorn and waiting, waiting to go out."

The mood was worse for conservative bloggers as Democrats gained a stronger footing in the Senate.

After Elizabeth Dole lost her seat in North Carolina, blogger Michelle Malkin posted: "I can tell you this much: The Senate Republicans need a wake-up call. We need fresh, conservative leadership." At one point, RightWingNews.com liveblogger John Hawkins seemingly lost all hope.

"Oooof. Minnesota and Ohio for Obama," Hawkins posted. "Game over."

The popular social networking site Facebook invited users to click an 'I Voted' button on their profiles. At the time of writing, more than four million Facebook users said they had voted. On MySpace, the mud was flying in the comments section of the site's official Election Day profile. Several MySpace users simply posted who they had voted for in the election. Others had harsher words.

"I'll keep my God, my freedom, my guns and my money," wrote one MySpacer who supported Republican John McCain. "You can keep the change."

"Vote Obama no mo drama," posted another. "Go Obama. Go Obama. Go Obama." Not all the online pursuits were as serious.

In Electronic Arts' species-creation simulator Spore, the game's developer created downloadable spaceships in the candidates' likeness.

The John McCain and Sarah Palin ships were classified as an "endangered species," while the Obama and Joe Biden vessels were deemed a "flourishing species" based on player votes on Tuesday on the Sporepedia, the game's database of user creations.

Meanwhile, in the PlayStation 3 platformer game LittleBigPlanet, several gamers had uploaded election-themed user-generated levels, including one titled "CNN Election Centre" that featured dangerous obstacles amid photos of CNN news anchors.

At the end of the level, players could cast a faux vote for either Obama or McCain, which both culminated in a splash of confetti and points.

Over at eBay.com, the auction on four one-of-kind Cabbage Patch Dolls crafted to look like the presidential and vice-presidential candidates ended on Tuesday.

The Palin doll nabbed the most cash with a $19,000 (Dh69,796) bid while the Biden doll only brought in $3,500. The lil' Obama and McCain impersonators earned offers of $8,400 and $6,000, respectively.

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