Researchers find racism translates to virtual worlds as well

from Ars Technica by jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer)

It’s easy to develop a confusing picture of what goes on inside of multiuser virtual worlds, such as Second Life and World of WarCraft. Some reports suggest that the virtual reality enables people to escape from social interactions they otherwise find difficult; others highlight how users of virtual worlds find them satisfying because of the rich social interactions they enable. Some researchers at Northwestern University looked into just how well real-life social influences translate to the the virtual realm and discovered one that does: racism.

The authors used two different instances of social manipulation that are known to work well in the real world. The first is the “foot in the door” (FITD) approach, in which a small, easily accomplished favor is asked. These tend to make the person who granted the favor happy about their cooperation, and more likely to agree to further requests, even if they require more effort.

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The Empire Strikes Back as Second Life Announces Instant Messenger SLim

Via Mashable – by Doriano “Paisano” Carta

It didn’t take long for Second Life, a leader in 3D Virtual Worlds, to respond to There.com’s announcement of new features.The most compelling new feature There.com revealed was its innovative ThereIM which would allow its members to chat in 3D and 2D worlds at the same time. Not to be out-done by their competition, Second Life has announced their own instant messenger called SLim™ (Second Life Instant Messenger) that will work in the 2D and 3D worlds.

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Journeys: A Virtual World Mashup With Real-World Destinations

Via Tech Crunch -by Jason Kincaid on September 3, 2008

Most of today’s virtual worlds are set in mythical places, with landmarks that no newcomer would be familiar with. While this may suit most people just fine, it can be unsettling for those who have never been exposed to a virtual world. Today sees the launch of Journeys, a mashup that hopes to appeal to these users by leveraging Flickr and Yahoo Maps APIs to create what it calls a “virtual world based on real Earth”.

Right now, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to Journeys (though the same could be said of nearly every virtual world). Users can fly around the world to a handful of destinations, including the Louvre, New York’s Central Park, and the Golden Gate Bridge. After landing, they can chat with their friends in front of their favorite landmarks. And, in a somewhat bizarre twist, their avatars will continue to travel the world and meet people while they’re logged off, sending an email digest of its daily activities (I couldn’t see this in action because nobody was logged in when I tested the site, but I can’t imagine it working well).

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