Re: [mmox] mmox Digest, Vol 1, Issue 48

[Lawson English <[e-mail]>]

Jon Watte wrote:
>
> Can we please stop the sound-byte-ing. We're not daring pioneers in 
> the larger sense -- virtual worlds have been around forever. There 
> have been many attempts over many years (Habitat, ActiveWorlds, The 
> Palace, all the VRML in the '90s...) , and interoperability between 
> dozens of vendors, including imagery and real-time voice, has been 
> done since the '80s. What's new is that the technology is being 
> popularized to more users. I suggest we focus on building features 
> that users want to pay for, because that's how things actually get 
> done on a larger scale.
>
> Btw: If it's a regular video stream, served by video streaming 
> servers, and watchable through a regular web browser, does that even 
> count as "bringint the meeting into the virtual world"? It's just 
> video streaming, not interactive. I agree it's useful and worthwhile, 
> but I really do wish that the sound-byting would end...
>
> Sincerely,
>
> jw
>

Well, the in-world meeting seemed productive to me. If you're not 
familiar with the Metanomics and Science Friday venues, you don't know 
how powerful a shared inworld/outworld experience can be even with 
minimal hardware (nothing as elaborate as what Qwaq apparently can do).

Sharing text chat, a visual space (or more) and the ability to interact 
live in-world and RL is different than what your describing, at least it 
feels different to me. Croquet's app sharing appears to take it to a 
higher level in many ways, but the principle is the same. People get a 
sense of shared space better in 3D than simply looking at 2D, even if 
the shared space is a bunch of avatars watching a movie screen.

And multi-world chat should rock if we get it working right.



Lawson