Obama's FCC transition team includes MMO gamer, virtual world resident

Among the people President-elect Barack Obama has appointed to his FCC agency review transition team are Net Neutrality advocates Kevin Werbach, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, and Susan Crawford from the University of Michigan, who teaches communications and internet law. Werbach, as it turns out, is a World of Warcraft player, according to Wagner James Au at GigaOM.

Werbach has written about MMOs on his blog (back in 2006), that games "provide an incentive for people to develop new software and ideas for collaborative production. Many of those ideas will translate to other group activities, including those within the business world. I think MMOGs will be, at minimum, a significant testbed for these new technologies, because users see a direct benefit and are willing to experiment with new things." Werbach plays in two WoW guilds, one started by a friend, and the other is comprised of academics whose interests or work focus on virtual worlds.

While Werbach is more of a traditional MMO gamer, Crawford is a fan of Second Life, judging by what she's written on the virtual world in the past on her blog. At the very least, it's a positive sign that individuals connected with the FCC and its policies really understand how people are using technology to socialize, collaborate, and play.