Is there life after Web surfing? Yes, and with Avatars!, you can grab your avatar (a digital representation of yourself), run to the nearest virtual world, and experience a whole new Internet. Enter worlds where you take the shape of a butterfly darting in and out of the 3D world below, or where you assume the identity of a living cartoon-strip character talking in text bubbles above your head.
The only book of its kind, Avatars! focuses on what people do inside these virtual worlds, such as building three-dimensional structures, navigating through the worlds, and learning digital etiquette and social interaction skills. A CD-ROM provides readers with ready-to-run worlds that connect them with thousands of other people on the Internet and which are referenced in a companion web site that serves to keep virtual explorers abreast of the latest happenings in the various worlds.
Bruce Damer is a founding director of the Contact Consortium, the first forum for the culture and contact in virtual worlds. He has also authored three successful software packages (The Elixir Desktop, ElixiFont, and ElixiGraphics--all sold worldwide by Xerox and IBM), and has marketed advanced software interface technologies from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.