IMMERSIVE INTERNET AUSTRALIA

11/1/2009
By Mandy Salomon August 2010

Innovation Report: Introducing Virtual Worlds

Framing a new modality for learning, collaboration and productivity.

The immersive Internet is upon us: it refers to a new set of tools that not only creates digital space, but is also interactive. As the world grapples with a global financial crisis, searches for low-carbon solutions and re-considers its traditional operating structures, now is the time for business, government, education and industry leaders to consider the Internets paradigm shift, from flat web sites, to shared online environments. This report flags the trends and innovations, particularly in Australia, and is designed to stimulate strategists and managers to think about virtual worlds as a significant new way of communicating, collaborating and innovating in the 21 st century.

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INTRODUCTION ORIGINS 5

3 7

DESCRIBING THE IMMERSIVE INTERNET AVATARS AND IDENTITY 11 18 TOWARDS A TAXONOMY 15 W HEN A WORLD CLOSES... REFERENCES 21 23 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TABLE 1: Virtual worlds use cases. .................................................................................................... 17

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VIRTUAL WORLDS: AN INTRODUCTION

Introduction
Across the world, people collectively project themselves into online computer-generated environments. Many may wonder why, with the somewhat incredulous But I dont have time for a first life let alone a second, being a common response. The answer lies in the fact that there are many first life happenings in virtual worlds, and instead of immersive online environments being considered as other, they are places where real-world activities are being facilitated or extended. Consider the practice by multi-millions of people who digitally capture their lives, with photographs, videos, Facebook or daily updates via Twitter; is it not such a big leap to imagine digitising life itself? Since the open, user-generated world Second Life went public in 2003, some 18 million adult users (Wikipedia, 2010) have ticked the Terms of Service box, and jumped in, even if only to sate their curiosity. This is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. By 2010, hundreds of millions of people of all ages and nationalities had registered with an immersive environment platform of one kind or another, created their avatar, and stepped into the Internet. Just how many people have done this is a matter of informed debate, as the numbers of virtual worlds participants vary widely. Measurements have not been standardised and terms are not defined. However, as 3D-environment tools and platforms mature and diversify, quantifying user take-up is becoming less relevant. The important question is not how much do we do it, but what do we do? The immersive Internet is the generic term used in this report, to encompass the tools that enable the doing. Readers may be familiar with other labels such as virtual immersive environments (VIE), multi-user virtual environments (MUVES), the 3D Web, virtual worlds, computer-based interactive simulated environments persistent simulated environments - and there are even more. Whilst definitions are not set in stone, and platform properties are variable and evolving, they share a core element: they are digitally created spaces in which metaphors for real-world interaction take place. And they are not always about people. Man-made objects and natural phenomena have lives too, in the sense that they exist in dynamic environments where unintended events occur, thus modifying their states; one need only think of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an example. Living amidst virtual worlds of things barely registers in circles where innovation is discussed, and yet, in imposing virtual stress elements on interactive models, and amplifying the signals through the manipulation of physics, problems can be foreseen long before they fully emerge.

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Figure 1: Screen shot from a Comprehensive Deepwater Oil and Gas Blowout Model ( Cdog ) animation in
which oil spills are visualised by the interaction between ocean, wind, and current. CDOG can also factor in virtual chemicals to see if they will spread the oil around or thin the slick (Papas, 2010). <http://www.cdogmodel.com/>

People-focussed virtual worlds can also be used as models for better outcomes, and though it is early days, there are thousands of examples; the prodigious output in Second Life alone, which includes emergency response training (Play to Play), customer relations role plays (Nortel Contact Centre 6.0) and behavioural therapy (SL-Labs, the Derby University project for assisting autistic children with their social integration), is a testament to the will and energy by many to create an immersive web of new and enhanced services, and the better distribution of them. Virtual worlds are very good at the what ifs and they are arguably the most adaptable tools we have, as they bring scale, engagement, and longevity (Castronova, 2010) to problem solving. As the technology improves, we could see virtual environments being used to model public policy, devise legislation, build cities, rethink finance and the economy, create transport infrastructure, or provide guidance on a behavioural issues. For this reason, it is important to take stock of progress to date, and note the indicators and potential that lies ahead. An obvious place to start is to by looking at ways virtual worlds are currently being used, and there are many. Virtual world residents range from children playing dress-ups in Barbie Girl to military command centres with deadly serious intentions (US NEXUS). In-between, are businesses, industries, schools, hospitals, government departments, families, friends, and communities. This report describes them, presenting platforms, practices, practitioners and outcomes; the aim is to demonstrate the ways in which the immersive Internet may impact on you, your work, your colleagues, your constituents and most importantly your plans. Spreading an awareness of the immersive Internets potential, and being a tool for advocacy is the reports primary objective.

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Origins
The history of the Internet shows us that new tools lead to new applications, which in turn challenge established ways of interacting, doing business and delivering services - email and the rise of mobile web-browsing devices as examples; as the technology improves, its usefulness becomes clearer. The immersive Internet seems to be evolving in exactly this way, with unexpected leads coming from users, who, in the era of Web 2.0 and beyond, have not only been given the keys, but also permission to look under the hood, modify and add new bits. Co-creation, open source and open architecture are essential ingredients in growing the immersive Internet, and explain why, along with societal factors, its time is now; digitised environments need to be extensible in order to stay relevant, and if they are, they will evolve with us. However immersion, in the sense of rapt engagement, plainly predates the Internet age, as anyone who has been enthralled by the presence of another, or absorbed in a book will attest. The primary musings on the subject date from the 3rd century BCE, in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. In Republic and Poetics, respectively, they noted peoples ability to understand representations of reality, the kind crafted by artists, writers and musicians. Mimesis, as Plato termed it, was a way for people to reflect on situations outside their own, developing insight and empathy in the process. Aristotle went further, proposing that the human propensity for creating narratives was fundamental to the human condition, that human beings were themselves mimetic. Their ideas are the seeds from which discussions on presence, and in recent times, tele-presence have been sown, and which thread through centuries of philosophical thinking. Descartes mind/body dialectic from the 17th century, expressed the tension between the natural world - the body - and the internal world - thought - in the words, I think therefore I am; surely one of civilizations greatest aphorisms, it is, arguably, a contemplation on virtual life. Two to three hundred years later, these words reverberated in Freud and Jungs studies on the constructed self, in which they asserted that subjective imagining and objective reality were a matter of perception (Freud, 1990; Jung, 1956). Sitting chronologically between Freud and Jung is the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His writings (1927) on the human capacity for being in the moment, prefigured the sentiments which participants express today as they negotiate their way through virtual worlds via their avatars. (Reeves and Nass, 1996; Schroeder, 2006). Similarly, the extension of self, expressed in an avatar, connects with Michael Heims tenet (1991) that technology is a mode of human existence.

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Finally - though this list is far from complete - Jean Baudrillards treatise (1985) that the more simulation systems infiltrate society, the more diffused does that societys sense of reality become, resonates in respect to users almost casual acceptance of augmented reality applications which are now built into smart phones. Scientists in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) have drawn on this rich compendium. According to the chief scientist at Xerox PARC throughout the 1980s, Mark Weiser (1991), concepts around presence, existence and symbolism helped formulate thinking on ubiquitous computing, and the organisational metaphors and interaction idioms that were the foundations of the graphical user interface.

Figure 2: Other worlds: Second Life, 2010 (left), <ostatic.com/second-life-0> and Garden of Earthly Delights,
detail, c 1500, Hieronymus Bosch (right) <http://commons.wikimedia.org >

Brenda Laurel (1991), an influential interface and games designer at Atari, Apple and Interval, sourced Aristotle and his work on mimesis to advance her ideas on tele-presence, game theory and virtual reality. In the literary sphere, works which explore hyper-reality, notably those by William Gibson (1984) and Neal Stephenson (1992), are amongst the most cited by technologists of virtual worlds; in particular, Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life (Au 2008, 16), Raph Koster (2009), designer of Ultima Online and Metaplace, and the so-called father of virtual worlds, Richard Bartle (2004, 64). As this illustrious trail demonstrates, humans capacity to imagine or even experience life beyond the physical or atomic has quite some history. Virtual worlds are part of the continuum, and not, as some might have it, an unnatural deviation, or a gimmick in the latest Silicon Valley catalogue. Whether the immersive Internet is a non-real place that exists independent of imagination, as games designer Raph Koster (2010) describes virtual worlds, or whether, rather more prosaically, it is set of tools and applications that assist people to handle daily tasks, it is essentially a social construction: we think, therefore we can.

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Describing the immersive Internet

Levels of immersiveness in virtual environments roughly match the development of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in more general terms. Beginning as DOS commands, tools for human agency evolved into graphical user interfaces and beyond that, into rich multi-media such as video, audio and 3D animation. Similarly, the early play/narratives of the first generation of Internet users - the textbased MUDs and MOOs of the late 70s - have evolved into highly produced massively-multiplayeronline-role-playing-games (MMORPGS) and virtualworlds.

Figure 3: Trajectory of immersion from text based role playing games (circa 1980) to mobile apps with players
photorealistic avatar in the action (circa 2012)

Typically, todays virtual worlds feature densely rendered graphics, increasingly efficient load times, and physics such as wind, light, shadow, weight and velocity. (WOWWIKI). An object that tumbles rather than falls, knocking over other objects along the way, and then comes to a standstill when it meets with a denser mass, is described as more immersive than Luigi, of Nintendos Mario Brothers fame who simply falls off the perch.

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Figure 4: The proprietary model for new generation video games affords production values, which equate those
of feature films. Immersion at its most advanced: a still from Metal Gear, released by Xbox 360 at the e3 \Games conference, June 2010 <http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/microsoft-e3/>

In technology terms, a virtual world is a platform, either installed in-situ or delivered as a service that provides environments in which people engage via digital representations of themselves, avatars. Interaction is enabled through keyboard commands and through multiple channels (voice, chat, visual clues such as avatar position and gesticulation) with users being able to manipulate objects, navigate environments, or be aware of other users in the space. Common content is shared both synchronously and asynchronously and may be experienced as rich media (video, audio, music). These factors help to create a sense of immersion which traditional screen based activities such as web browsing does not. The spatial element of 3D worlds, apart from being visually instructive, provides strong cognitive cues for avatars; the arrangement of objects within the space can provoke conversation, just as happens in the physical world. This kind of small talk can often be a more effective relationship builder than the formal content of the event (Thinkbalm, 2009). Voice itself has spatial qualities, dimming at a distance and getting louder when collaborators are located closer together. This allows people to gauge to whom they can talk to at any given time, enabling multiple conversations to occur simultaneously. Another primary characteristic of virtual worlds is persistence: the idea that even when an event is over, authorised users can access the virtual space at any time. Participants in another time zone may start the day with the results of real-time collaboration that occurred while they were sleeping. The use cases, discussed in this paper, suggest that when real-time communication takes place in simulated environments (worlds), users engage more deeply with content and each another, than when using other communication modes, such as teleconferencing.

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The difference lies in the combined elements of Bespoke content, (making digital objects to order). Programmable objects (objects move or behave in particular ways. Persistent space (it remains intact when you log off, and reconfigures to that point when you come back to it, although modifications may be made by permitted users in the interim.) Multiple media channels, streamed live from the physical world, or archived. Physics, like shadows, wind, and other natural elements. Embodied presence (avatars). Interaction with other users in real-time via gesture, voice and text chat. Activities aligned with online game-play and social networking such as building communities, setting goals and acquiring digital goods. Ability to capture, store and replay action and events in the world. Collaboration and document tools such as drag and drop and importing of web or desktop data.

Not all worlds have or need this complex mix; in fact one of the most popular worlds, Club Penguin (above), which Disney bought for $(US) 350m in 2007, is built with Flash and is in 2D. However, the more immersive elements there are in a virtual world - and this generally means more bandwidth is required - the greater its ability to mimic the physical world. As virtual environments move out of the laboratories and into the services and enterprise sector, the turf once occupied by philosophers and writers is being turned over to the business world. U.S. based technology consultancy, Thinkbalm (2009), who works with early adopter companies, offers a framework of graduated experiences to gauge the level of online immersion. The Company suggests it is a continuum that is determined by the degree to which the users senses are engaged, and the desirability and meaningfulness of the activity in which the user is participating. The listed
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immersive factors are visual, tactile, auditory, and collaboration and interactivity, adding a virtual environment doesnt need to score high in all of these areas to be immersive, but the more highs it gets, the more immersive it is. Industry consultant Richard Hackathorn suggests soft principles such as feelings should be added (Thinkbalm, 2009a).

2D

2.5

3D

PRESENCE ENVIRON- shared expressive MENT customised visual emotional spatial tactile auditory persistent (touch) active editable agile identifiable
asynchronous

INTERACTION Metaverse space sounds objects relationships collaboration documents/media

synchroronous

Figure 5: Immersive factors aggregate to create a rich environment for interaction and engagement. With immersive worlds, collaboration takes place in real time (synchronous), whereas with email, or even posting a tweet, cause and effect is impacted by lag.

Brian Bauer (2009), a specialist in the educational and enterprise applications of immersive worlds, offers two intriguing analogies: casinos and hypnosis. Casinos, he suggests, are multi-sensory environments in which outside world reminders are eliminated, users needs fulfilment are attended to, and in which the user is elevated into a state of heightened value. He pairs this with the idea of hypnosis, in which patient awareness shifts through their willingness and the use of an effective tool (such as a therapist). Bauer then posits that to further optimise immersion, a third facet is required: an overlay of stickiness, in which user expectations are exceeded and the service outperforms other similar offerings in the market place. A combination of all three elements, he sees as the benchmark of immersion. Nintendos Wii would appear to satisfy this prescription. Ask a player if they have been on a real court playing tennis. Even though they will be huffing and puffing from the exertion, they will tell you
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firmly, they have not. The technology has willed them into another mindset, without them losing a sense of themselves. Indeed studies conducted at Stanford Universitys s Virtual Human Interaction Lab (SVHI) show that immersive experiences have powerful influences on behaviour, particularly in the link between digital self-representation online and off-line behaviour. (Fox et al, 2009). Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab the company that created Second Life, noted this himself when he came across a virtual world resident who identified so much with his svelte avatar that he had lost seventy pounds (PBS, 2009). Whether the Stanford studies fall on the utopian or dystopian side of the technology ledger remains to be seen. Neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield (2009) worries that, The messiness and squalor of the real-world, and the real time element, might be offset by the more sanitised virtual reality, and that over time, a humans capacity for empathy could diminish. Not surprisingly, Rosedale holds the contrary view, believing that virtual worlds promote the opportunity to explore possibilities for ourselves and our environment (PBS, 2009).

Figure 6: Mirror world: Imaginelab, housed within Georgia Techs College of Architecture is a virtual, interactive environment
to facilitate complex planning and communication for Georgia Tech researchers and collaborators. It is a key component to the Georgia Tech Digital Building Lab, which collaborates with corporate and government entities on building research ranging from conceptualization and design to fabrication and project management. <http://www.coa.gatech.edu/imagine/>

Avatars and identity

In 2009, the cast from The Guild, a web-tv situation comedy series about a group of World of Warcraft players trying to juggle their real and virtual lives, made a 1980s pop-clip spoof entitled, Do you want to date my avatar (Guild, 2009). Within a day of its release on YouTube, people around the globe had lifted the sound track and made machinima versions using their own avatars and virtual worlds. Amongst the responses was a choreographed replica of the original clip, with lipsynching, accurately costumed Second Life avatars. Other mashups included fantasy characters from Hobbit Entropia Universe, Runescape and World of Warcraft itself, stiffly moving to the beat through heavy armour and dripping skin.

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Figure 7: Do You Want To Date My Avatar: Actors from the web-comedy The Guild in the video clip which
struck a chord with gamers around the world, with 9.7 million downloads in 8 months and numerous takeoffs using their own avatars <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urnyg1ftmiu&feature=related>

The clip had unwittingly become an anthem for virtual worlds gamers whose avatar identities up to that point had received little or no recognition outside their own digital walled gardens. With around 9.7 million downloads of the original clip over 9 months, and with the James Cameron film Avatar the highest grossing film ever, the notion of avatar has zeitgeist status. If further evidence were necessary, the banner ad urges people to Avatar yourself. When a noun becomes a verb, the tipping point from niche to mainstream has clearly been reached. Derived from the ancient Sanskrit word describing a deity who comes from the heavens to assist, the word in its contemporary setting has a number of interpretations. In social media terms, an avatar is the self-selected graphical representation, often a photograph that travels around the web, in postage stamp size, popping up on blog comments, twitter directories, Facebook walls, and ever more pervasively in smart phone address books and applications. In this sense, avatars are evolving as personal digital trademarks and, in the reputation economy (Anderson, 2009) where ones worth is aligned to ones value in the network, are destined to become assets. With the immersive Internet, avatars take on extra characteristics; they become digital actors, enabling the user to mark their place and gain agency in an interactive space; this may include manipulating objects, navigating an environment, and interacting with other users in the space. These experiencesby proxy engage the thoughts, emotions and senses in users, imparting a sense of presence, of being there. (Fox et al, 2009). And yet the online teen hangout, HABBO with its cardboard cut-out avatars that barely move or emote, aggregates 151 million registered users, of which 14.5 million unique user logins each month (Sulake,2009). Clearly the HABBO community do not require higher-level simulation in order to be immersed.
Figure 8: Habbo Hotels 2.5d avatars,
stickiness without high-end immersion.

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Moreover, although HABBOs creator, the Finnish company Sulake, releases new versions including a format for mobile devices (Bobba), they have resisted upgrading the visual properties in any substantial way. Instead, the Company has focussed on facilitating social interaction by establishing personalised and public spaces, community building, purchase of virtual objects, and ease of use.

Figure 9: Avatars (Clockwise) Club Penguin In

Flash 2D; Teleplaces Simple option avatars; Canberra-based platform, Mycosms photorealistic avatar (used with permission).

In the adult social world Second Life, (fig.

10) the level of customisation of avatars is so high that the practice leads to inferences from critics (Rawstorne, 2008) that residents dont have much on offer in their real lives and instead live out their fantasies as look-a-like Pamela Andersons or Arnie Schwarzeneggers, inhabit enviable - albeit pixilated absolute water frontage condominiums, and form virtual relationships which threaten their realworld onesif they are lucky enough to have them. However, there is mounting evidence that people find degrees of liberation in virtual worlds, as they are not constrained by what cognitive scientist Andy Clark (2005), calls our biological skin bags, finding purpose and agency in digitally-generated environments that they
Immersive Internet Australia

Figure 10: Second Life avatars are infinitely customisable

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may not otherwise have. The experience of cerebral palsy-afflicted residents in a care centre in the US underscores this. They have jointly created an avatar Wild Cunningham (fig. 11) who socialises, rides waves and climbs mountains in the Second Life. Their caregivers report that, free of their wheelchairs and disease, the participants experience a level of social acceptance not possible in the physical world. This has resulted in improved self-confidence and a sense of empowerment: and that participants express their creativity and humour in ways not previously available to them (CBS, 2008).

Figure 11: Flying with a disability: a Cerebral Palsy group with their avatar Wild Cunningham which enables
them to experience activities not feasible in the real world. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3547970n

Apart from being visually instructive, the spatial element of 3D worlds provides strong cognitive cues for avatars; the arrangement of objects within the space can provoke conversation, just as happens in the physical world. This kind of small talk can often be a more effective relationship builder than the formal content of the event (Thinkbalm, 2009). Voice itself has spatial qualities, dimming at a distance and getting louder when collaborators are located closer together. This allows people to gauge to whom they can talk to at any given time, enabling multiple conversations to occur simultaneously.
Figure 12: Avatars from next-generation virtual world 'ProjectX', which has the lofty ambition of mapping the entire real world in 3D <http://micazook.com/micablogs.mica>

Figure 13: Here comes everybody: James

Camerons film has driven a once esoteric idea into the mainstream.

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Towards a Taxonomy
The Immersive Internet comprises computer-based simulated environments, calibrated for different purposes and demographics (fig. 14). Each world has its own set of characteristics, such as the number of concurrent users; the degree to which the socialising element is important; whether collaborative decision or prototyping activities are required, and so on. The biggest market sector (kzero, 2009) is the so-called kids, tweens and teens (KTT) group, in which entertainment products, already configured for games consoles, and plush toys and videos (Club Penguin, Pirates of the Caribbean), are being redesigned as 2D, 2.5D and 3D interactive social spaces. Some worlds are almost entirely user-generated (Second Life), with free download, and open registration to all, subject to agreement with its Terms of Service (TOS). Others are usefully described as intraverse worlds, meaning they are purchased goods, operate on enterprises own servers, and used in-house.

Figure 14: Logos of games worlds, enterprise worlds, user-created worlds and social worlds (Google images,
source unknown, circa 2008).

Worlds suited to the enterprise sector, (Teleplace, Web Alive, VastPark 3dXplorer) will likely offer pre-made environments such as a board room, or provide a conference fit-out with multiple document and media applications. Business models vary, with revenue coming from subscription, purchase fees, advertising sales, product placement, and sales of virtual goods such as items to differentiate users avatars (StarDoll), or to enhance social or game play.

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MMOGS

visualisation tools

simulation platforms
Social hangouts Open virtual worlds Open Sim

Games Worlds

Kids Worlds

Intraverse, serious games (Edu, training, enterprise)

Figure 15: The universe of the immersive Internet. Simulation platforms vary in their characteristics and are built
according to market sector needs. Titles below are colour coded to match the diagram.

Eve Online, World of Warcraft, Lineage, Everquest, Lord of the Rings, Entropia Universe, Ultima II, Stardoll, Saddle Club, HelloKitty, Lego Universe, Kung Fu Panda, WeeWorld, Build-a-Bear, Webkinz, Proptropica, Club Penguin, Play-Station Home, Barbie Girls, Toontown IMVU,Gaia,Meez Habbo ArchiPlace, SimUrban, ImagineLab

SecondLife, BlueMars, Multiverse Kaneva, ProjectX Mycosm (closed Beta), Active Worlds, VastPark platform, Twinity (closed Beta), There (2004-2010), Metaplace (2008-2009) Open Cobalt Alpha(via the Croquet platform), OPENSIM platform (incorporates 100 open source worlds including Reaction Grid, Science Sim).

Second Life Enterprise, Real Extend, Rocket, Offspring, OLIVE, Quest Atlantis (using the Active World platform), OpneWonderland, WebAlive, 3DXplorer, US Nexus Protosphere, PowerU, Unisfair, InExpo,On24, , VenueGen, Teleplace

The best-known virtual world is the social world Second Life (SL). Although the number of active users is relatively small - the platform owner, Linden Lab, measured 750,000 unique repeat logins in the third quarter of 2009 - Second Life is the virtual world which most closely reflects the diversity and happenstance of the physical world, due to it being almost entirely user-generated with hundreds of terabytes of content created by users to service their needs. An inworld economy thrives, as residents trade virtual objects and experiences. Linden Lab announced in September 2009 that $(US) 1bn (Linden 2009) had been traded since the platform went public in 2003. SL is also the world in which educators, corporations, government organisations and NGOs have most explored. According to the Second Life Education Wiki, over two hundred higher education institutions have committed to regions there, and hundreds more rent space within these. However newer platforms are challenging its pre-eminence, including VastPark and Mycosm developed in Melbourne and Canberra, and the open source version of Second Life and OpenSim.

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TABLE 1: Virtual worlds use cases. TYPE

Command and control

EXAMPLE
A facility management system in which real-time data from different facilities can be brought into a 3D-environment to visualize hot spots, data flow, and server utilisation. In the health sector, diagnostics and patient support, such as using virtual environments to improve cognitive function after brain injury, or providing a clinical or therapeutic environment for people isolated through illness or disability. Show case next-generation operations centres, such as oil rigs (Teleplace) Palomar West Hospital (Cisco/Second Life). Mock-ups of objects, living spaces or urban design. Users traverse, interact, or customise in order to get a sense of space and function. Companies launch virtual products to gauge market response. Recreational spaces for meeting. A place for self-expression (content creation, machinima). A place where identity can be explored (avatars). Includes Kids, Tweens and Teens (KTT) worlds, branded worlds (Barbie Girl, Neopets etc), and virtual platform TV and film properties (MTVs Laguna Beach, Disneys Pirates of the Caribbean) Streaming of live events from concerts to political broadcasts, purchase and trading of virtual goods with click through to the Web for real-world purchases.

Service delivery

Prototyping and design

Social, entertainment and retail

Education and training

Establishing workflow practices and scenario building such as emergency response. Remote learning. Learning through doing and experiencing via spatial and visual metaphors, game play, cultural exchange, group work. Meetings and forums, project and document collaboration, customer/client role-play, trade shows, brand extension, recruitment, product placement, virtual goods. Market research, academic research, data aggregation, maps.

Enterprise

Metrics

The technology is in its infancy but changing rapidly. Just as we have adapted to living alongside data: wireless connectivity in an increasingly sensed environment, so we will become accustomed to living inside the data (Kapp and Driscoll, 2010). Tomorrows virtual worlds, prefigured in the Xbox Kinect (formallyProject Natal) will be controller and keyboard free. Smart sensors will read our body language, voice, and environment, collaborating with search agents that retrieve information about us to determine intention. User-created environments and narratives will be projected onto surfaces for us, to interact with. Farzad Safaei, Director of the University of Wollongongs ICT Research Institute suggests one way to think about the combined impact of integrated camera/projectors, gesture recognition, motion semantics, and human tracking is Let it be (Safaei, 2009). We will pull down our virtual environments from the data cloud, and do in it what we wish.

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Figure 16: Screen characters respond to players voice commands and reproduce the actions of the player in
Xboxs Project Natal, June 2009. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_txf7ietx0>

When a world closes...

Perhaps it is inevitable that as an industry matures, a shake-up occurs. New players emerge but equally, established ones fold or are acquired by bigger players. So it has been with virtual worlds. As the decade 2009-2010 turned, followed by the long shadows of the economic uncertainty, a number of high profile platforms folded or were sold to technology companies looking to extend their portfolios. Sun Microsystems was taken over by Oracle and with it, funding for Project Wonderland dried up. The platform, which targets training and meeting needs, has handy features like a drag-and-drop facility for Web documents and its integration with Googles 3D Warehouse means existing objects can be pulled into the space, and customised. Open Wonderland, as it is now called, continues on a voluntary basis, and its future is uncertain.

Figure 17: Sun Microsofts Project Wonderland was sidelined when its parent company Sun Microsystems was
bought by Oracle in 2009.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am_qwxc0tvs>

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Figure 18: Forterras OLIVE platform was seemingly well positioned for enterprise contracts before the U.S. economy began to falter. OLIVE was sold to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). <http://www.saic.com/feature/critical-infrastructure/olive.html?intcmp=hm_olive>

Forterra, a major player in the enterprise and military virtual world sector, laid half of its forty or so staff (3DTLC, 2009) off, citing the 2009 credit squeeze in the USA as the problem. In early 2010, it sold its OLIVE platform to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune500 company with strong links to the U.S. Governments national security interests. Makena Industries There.com, a pioneer platform launched in 2003, folded in early 2010. As a virtual hangout for some two million users, There emphasised social interaction and game play, had a virtual economy and had developed branded off-shoots for companies such as Coca-Cola, K-Swiss and a number of MTV properties including Laguna Beach, and the Music Video Awards. In closing, it put the blame squarely on economic circumstances in the U.S.; however in spite of the slogan, Where your friends are, There struggled to compete against Gaia and HABBO, which were perceived to be more hip, and with Second Life which proved to be more interesting for older users (There, 2010).

Figure 19: An extract from There.coms farewell to users, February, 2010.<

http://www.there.com/info/announcement/>

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To date, there is no repository world for users content should a virtual world fold or sunset, as games developer Raph Koster termed it, when he announced in December 2009 that his platform Metaplace would end.

Figure 20: sunsetting announcement from Metaplace <http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/12/21/metaplace-com-closing/>

Metaplaces company plan was to enable users to create their own web-based virtual worlds using its open platform and tools for user-generated content (UGC). It was to be the central hub, a kind of central business district, from which users could venture, off into each others bespoke worlds. When things came unstuck, some 70,000 worlds were lost. The platform was proprietary and content could not be reused. Users were encouraged to take screen shots as a record, and although they could cut and paste objects and scripts, without a world the items were inert. Moreover, users grieved lost relationships, and Metaplace Veterans was formed so that cohort could share insights and maintain its collective memory. Regrettably for Metaplace et al, they bowed out just as education and training providers are turning-on to the extra dimensions that virtual environments bring to their endeavours.

Figure 21

Figure 22

President Obamas Africa Speech, July 11, 2009, simulcast into two virtual worlds, (left) Second Life http://www.flickr.com/photos/rikomatic/ (right) Metaplace> <http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2437/3710115708_ecabe27296.jpg > Photo Courtesy Of Rikomatic, under cc License.

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References
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Koster R 2010, Are Virtual Worlds Over?, retrieved May 2010, <http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/02/26/are-virtual-worlds-over/> KZERO 2009, Virtual Worlds: 2010 and beyond (report), retrieved October 2009, <http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog > Laurel, B 1991, Computers as Theatre, Addison Wesley, USA. Linden Lab 2009, The Second Life Economy Third Quarter 2009 in Detail, retrieved October 2009, <http://www.secondlife.com> Linden Lab 2009 (b), One Billion Hours, one billion dollars served, Second Life celebrates major milestone, retrieved October 2009, http://lindenlab.com/pressroom/releases/22_09_09 PBS Frontline 2009, Our Virtual future (video), retrieved September 2009, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/virtual-worlds/second-lives/our-virtualfuture.html?play> Rawstorne, T 2008, Living a Second Life: a fantasy world awash with sex and porn, retrieved August 2009, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085536/TOM-RAWSTORNE-LivingSecond-Life-fantasy-world-awash-sex-porn.html> Reeves, B and Nass, C 1996, The media equation: how people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places, Stanford CA, CSLI Publications. Safaei, F 2009, AARnet Training Workshop, (presentation), iCampus, Wollongong 17 August. Schroeder, R 2006, Being There and the Future of Connected Presence in Presence: Journal of Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15(4), pp.438-454., Cambridge MA, MIT Press Stephenson, N 1992, Snow Crash., NY, Random House. Sulake 2009, HABBO where else?, (press release), retrieved August 2009, <http://www.sulake.com/Habbo/ > There 2010 , last retrieved May 2010 <http://www.there.com/info/announcement/> Thinkbalm 2009a, What makes a virtual Environment immersive? retrieved August 2009, <http://www.thinkbalm.com/2009/09/07/what-makes-a-virtual-environment-immersive/> Thinkbalm 2009b, Immersive Internet Business Value study, Q2 2009 retrieved September 2009, <http://www.thinkbalm.com/2009/05/26/thinkbalm-publishes-business-value-study/ > Weiser, M 1991, The Computer of the 21st century Scientific American 09/91, retrieved September 2009, < http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html> Wikipedia 2010, Second Life, retrieved February 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life>

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About the Author

Mandy Salomon joined Smart Internet CRC in 2006 and is a senior researcher with Smart Services CRC, focusing on emergent web practices and their wider implications for the services sector. Mandy has shared her research amongst a diverse group of Australian business and NGO s including: TCCC, AIMI, AIIA, HISA, World Internet Project, Youth Council of Victoria, Parliament of Churches, Multimedia Victoria, Women In Computing, Asialink, Melbourne Grammar School, X/Media/Lab, Victorian Youth Services, Public Relations Institute of Australia and Online Banking Review. Internationally, she presented at the State-of- Play V, a collaboration between NYU, Yale and Nanyang University, Singapore. She is a foundation member of the Australasian Virtual Worlds Workshop and in 2009 co-edited The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (University of Texas) edition on Virtual Goods and Trades. In 2008-9 Mandy wrote Web Watch for Fairfax Newspapers, a column which sought to bring emerging Web trends to a broad audience.

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