Thursday PM VWs Meet the Web

Moderator: Skip (?) Constable (Electric Sheep)
Panel: (focused on consumer side)
Mitch Olson (Smorgles)
Daniel James (Three Rings)
Keith McKurdy (Vivity)
Sean Ryan (Mees)

ACCESSIBLITY, USABILITY, AND THE USER EXPERIENCE
2.5D vs 3D and the decisions you have to make. 2.5D has a range of different communications apps. Facility social interplay and immersive experiences. Dimensionality doesn't necessarily have a significant impact, acc to Olson. Ryan seemed to disagree. Keith said it doesn't have to do with dimensionality, but rather usability. What is easiest for the consumer? Assuming that is solved, then users gravitate towards the richer experience. Dan thinks immersion takes place in your head. A text game can be "immersive." If you require a plugin or download of any type, you are dead if you are going after a mainstream base. This brings you back to Flash or Java. If you have a download, 5% of people who check you ought will actually sign on. If there is no download, it will be more like 50%. Dan said with their app, a popup would come up and ask for permission to run it and 95% would not continue, agreeing with that previous statement.

SOCIAL NETWORKS
People want to be in VWs with people they know. Vivity is baked inside Facebook. Dan disagreed with this. 10% of Facebook users are logged in at any one time. So asynchronous use is important. The strength and weakness of VWs is that it is real time. Most people online are looking to meet people (consider that most users are teens). So they don't want to limit themselves to just the people they know in the RW.

HOW WEBSITES WILL CHANGE BASED ON VWS
The rise of community...forums to chats to ...there must be freedom to allow the users to disagree with you.

Quote of the day regarding EA: "If they could sell their mothers for money, they would do it."

The market and consumers dictate. They want 3D games/VWs.

Question: we have heard a lot about Facebook, but where is the next big thing coming into VWs coming from?
Answer: Sony's Little Big Planet (physics based, site scrolling game). Make your own physics-based games and share them with your friends. "Release some tools and see what happens." Someone will release a killer app for content creation. Only 1% of users are content creators, about 20% are modifiers, and everyone else just sponges. Give them more tools for creation and, even though more people will not create, it might generate the killer app. Very interested in how Spore will evolve.