I know the avatar I'm talking to isn't real. But is she real?

Presence can be costly. It's a lot of overhead to consider. And one has to figure that the virtual world never sleeps. Logging into Second Life at different times, it takes on a European, Australian, or Asian tone. Companies have to figure that a visitor might pop in at any time.

Which is why AI avatar "bots" are being developed that can take on that overhead instead of having a real person. They work quite cheap - free in fact beyond their build cost and they don't take breaks. The initial ones are likely going to be fairly simple responders but there are rumblings of some very savvy ones (see Artificial Intelligence Applications in 3d Virtual Worlds) that can do a credible job of mimicking the responses of a real person.

This of course undercuts one of the basic presumptions of virtual worlds, that an avatar represents a real person. One of the interesting aspects of virtual worlds and MMOs is that people tend to treat an avatar at face value, as if they were what they appeared to be. If that avatar appears to be a human man or woman, you, as a virtual world user, would probably respond accordingly. Imagine a virtual world where someone can seed avatars to make a space seem more popular as if other people really found it engaging, making you think twice about stopping to take a look around at the offers. This is already being done in MTV Virtual Worlds: when an event doesn't draw in enough people, bots are seeded to dispell the impression of unpopularity. Or that person chatting you up and that seems so interested in your latest real world shopping adventure could be a bot mining you for buying trends. Or your new "friend,", taking advantage of how viral marketing works, just swears by Eau'dee'doh perfume or MuskOxen deodorant.

"Cogito ergo sum" doesn't quite sum it up any more, does it?

Virtual world industry leaders forecast 2008

VWN is offering a report that details the response of 45 virtual world managers and leaders to a five-question questionnaire that asked:

1. What are your top 3 trend predictions for 2008?
2. What business goals have you set for 2008?
3. What challenges do you expect 2008 to bring for the virtual worlds industry?
4. A number of new platforms are launching in 2008. What are the biggest impacts this will have on the industry?
5. How will the above changes affect your specific segment of the industry in 2008?

To order the Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008, simply send an e-mail to to address listed at the former link and you'll receive a PDF copy of the report in your e-mail.

I found this a fascinating read and I'll have to read it again to compare the disagreeing statements. A number of the respondents were at the recent Virtual World Conference in San Jose and I appreciate the chance to read what they had to say. As you might expect, some had very different opinions regarding the upcoming months. I also noted that education seemed to figure prominently in a number of forecasts as did the expected strong growth in virtual worlds for children.

My only druthers for this report would have been to have the company name repeated after the name in each response since I don't know all of the responders by name and I couldn't follow their association with the industry from question to question.

Enchanting Dryad

Stanford Virtual Worlds Group has a nice little package for us under the Yule tree this year. It's a free tree creation utility for 3d applications and worlds called Dryad. Dryad works on most Windows XP & Vista systems, as well as Mac OS X. There is a promise that a Linux version is being compiled, but will possibly be some time in coming.

Dryad did not function correctly on my XP work T60p (I could use it fine. I just couldn't see any effect in my black preview pane that only blinked now and then to show part of that area). I have had numerous problems with the T60p in regards to virtual world use so I won't fault Dryad too much just yet.

"We are aware of a small number of incompatibilities with existing systems which manifest themselves in the form of graphical corruption. We are currently working to resolve these problems. In the meantime, we suggest you run Dryad on another system."

So until I can get home and pop Dryad onto the Vista game rig and Mac workstation, I'll have to take some of the claims on faith. If you have any updates or comments, please do share.

Since I could see some of the interface, I could explore a bit. The right-hand pane, as you can see in this borrowed screen capture, is a contextual options selection. It changes view according to the editing mode. In this initial view, one chooses the basic tree form. Since I could see the occasional glimpse of the interface, I knew where to click to access options. In one case, I accessed numerous slider bars that would change my tree's form and appearance. Finally, clicking the center checkbox allowed me to save my work in the generic and widely supported OBJ format. Since I don't have any 3d applications on my work machine, I was not able to open my edited file to view any of my work.

Trees are very complex objects to render and have them look any good. I remember I was all excited when Bryce first added tree models and very disappointed in how some of them looked upon render in that older version. WorldBuilder was one of the better approachable applications in terms of getting off the ground quickly but look at the price. Let's not even talk about Lightwave or Maya. Looking at some of the gallery images, Dryad appears to do a mighty fine job for current virtual world use; it's intuitive to use; it's free.

Whats more, there is a collaborative aspect that VWN reported on in their coverage, albeit one that I was unable to witness. If as reported, there's a great potential for growth, communication and building upon the work of others as the Dryad application is stated to improve and grow the more it is utilized by the community - sort of a shared object database I'm guessing. I also took advantage of Dryad's prompt to join the Stanford Virtual Worlds Group mailing list, the form conveniently found on the first page of the Dryad site.

Other than for some bugs which I have faith will be worked out, my only objections regarding Dryad is that is is free, easy to use, encourages creativity and collaboration, and outputs in a generic file format understood by most 3d applications (ah, if only most virtual worlds allowed for direct utilization of OBJ). I mean, where's the elitist factor in that? Give people powerful tools for free or modest cost and soon everyone will be creating these wonderful scenes and objects to use and share. Creativity will become the focus instead of tool use and access.

What is the virtual world coming to? Bah humbug! ;-)