It was a pleasure to be invited to last nights inaugural Virtual Worlds Salon in London as organised by Sasha Frieze and the Virtual Economic Forum. It was a well attended networking event that offered some rewarding connections, conversations and insights.
Approaching virtual worlds from the social media & social networking perspective, it was a useful reminder for me of the need to consider the longer term online environment we may eventually interact with. It also highlighted the value in moving beyond seeing this as simple definitions of 2-D, asynchronous and singular versus 3-D, synchronous and immersive environments. What connects both is their inherent sociality.
Indeed, as Bob Moore eloquently describes in his excellent post on the convergence between the areas, we are seeing the first examples of both new virtual social worlds and 3-D social networking applications. This is further demonstrated by the emergence of sites such as Kaneva and Koinup.
I won’t argue about the value, suitability or inevitability of that convergence here, but I would add that both areas flourish because they’re based on driving interest, participation and engagement while facilitating the formation of multiple relationships. Irrespective of which ‘D’ we feel we’re designing for, we’ll have to continually enable those behaviours over the longer term if we’re truely to meet user needs.
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