Giulio wrote:
"Video bubbles would permit retaining all the advantages of a shared 3D
environment while offering a representation that would be perceived as
more "serious" or "businesslike" (you know what I mean) by many. Also,
at this moment we cannot precisely control avatars but we can and do
control our faces and hands."
Always a "plus" for education, but I'll concede that Giulio's last
sentence does state an advantage, given the limited gestures avatars
possess. I have been thinking about how such a technology might
enable overly cautious business users to dip a toe into virtual
worlds. I'm looking forward to reading the link Giulio shared. A skim
of it showed that the author considers bubbles a transitional step to
"3d mirror images with a fidelity level that can cross the uncanny
valley."
The metaphor of the bubble bothers me, having just been to Burning
Life and on the Uncle D Story Quest, both of which demanded embodied
engagement.
"All the advantages"? Hardly; they'd lose immersion and the sort of
embodiment that having an avatar permits. Even a nonhuman avatar (a
tiny, a robot) is more "in world" than some bubble-wrapped business
video torso. I can imagine them being griefer-magnets at any event
they dared attend. My trickster side actually loves the bubble-idea,
so I could begin to start a meme about "Suits in Bubbles" and design a
big pin to pop them with.
I'd think that if a business wanted to explore SL or another world and
see them fully, and not just have meetings and look at occasional
content, they'd need avatars, not bubbles. For company purposes, they
could always set dress codes so Biff from Accounting is not running
about as a bikini-clad supermodel at the client meeting.
Perhaps our bubble-boys and girls might float about a bit, see the
potential of a world with avatars, then go on to have the real SL
experience by creating an avatar.
Or not. After all, a bubble is familiar; suits in the US have been in
them for years...and they just helped burst a big bubble that made the
whole planet slip into economic crisis.
I feel a blog-post coming on.
------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Essid, University of Richmond Rhetoric & Communication Studies
Iggy Strangeland: Reaction Grid
Iggyo: Metaplace
Iggyo Heritage: Heritage Key
Ignatius Onomatopoeia: Second Life
blog:
http://iggyo.blogspot.comWeb:
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