It’s often said 2D has advantages over 3D just as 3D has advantages over 2D. While 2D allows good overviews, particularly with text (a 2D medium per definition) and area/location based overviews (maps) it also has its limitations. 3D gives more of a feeling of presence, and has advantages due to a better relation with [...]

Posted on: March 13, 2008 | 4 Comments »

Linden Labs recent release of their new client ‘Dazzle‘ (or see Rheta’s excellent photo review here) reminded me of an old debate I still frequently have with a friend who’s more into games (World of Warcraft and Counterstrike). when I showed him Second Life he was surprised how anyone would be able to ‘immerse’ themselves [...]

Posted on: February 25, 2008 | 33 Comments »

On the internet we present ourselves differently to different audiences. Of course this is not a purely digital phenomena, but the internet has greatly amplified our need, and ability to do so. As Joseph B. Walther, a professor of communication and telecommunication at Michigan State University, told the New York Times in a recent interview, [...]

Posted on: January 27, 2008 | 5 Comments »

A new trend, a new Buzzword. Probably the latest one (and very niche) is ‘Avartising’. Avartising is a mix of the words Avatar, and Advertising. A 3d model which translates digital comfort to real world products. You can see hairstyles, clothing, make-up (tattoos and piercings?) on an avatar looking like you, or close enough to [...]

Posted on: December 27, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Usability prayers seem to have been answered with the new (beta)search in Second Life. The re-designed (2d) interface fixes some major problems that have been haunting Second Life from the start. The ‘alphabetic ordering’ and single word search query limitation are things of the past once this search gets installed into the main client.
Top 5 [...]

Posted on: December 21, 2007 | 2 Comments »

In all on-line community’s, whether its games, forums, networking sites, or a metaverse such as Second Life, there is always a digital representation of you. The user. Sometimes we expect this representation to be accurate (myspace, oorkut), sometimes we accept this representation is inaccurate to the real life (RL) situation, such as in games (World [...]

Posted on: December 17, 2007 | 1 Comment »