I’ve never really got in to mass multi-player games or virtal reality worlds like second life, I guess I’ve never really had the time or the D&D mentality.
However, a post on my blog RSS reader has got me a little more interested. It refers to a recent summit and then output of a paper looking at the metaverse roadmap. To quote from Jamais‘ blog:
Written by Jerry Paffendorf, John Smart and me, the Overview is the end-result of the first Metaverse Roadmap project meeting, in May of 2006. It’s not simply a summary of the meeting, however — rather, it’s the first attempt to synthesize current and emerging social, economic and technological trends around virtual worlds, immersive networks, and ubiquitous information.
The Overview looks at four different ways in which the Metaverse can manifest (as first mentioned here in April), but emphasizes that these are four perspectives, not four wholly-different worlds. (Once again, I’ll recommend checking out Wade Roush’s excellent article “Second Earth” in the July/August issue of Technology Review for further elaboration of these ideas.) This is a very futures-focused work, and tries not to be too blinded by the current state of immersive technologies, nor too influenced by current popular systems. We make a concerted effort to examine a wide variety of implications, and to position the Metaverse technologies in the broader context of human interests.
I’ve only just started reading this document, but already I’m intrigued by the possibilities that this sort of technology might make available to us. Some of the things in it I can see as natural progressions from where we are today. For example, the lifelogging tools. At the moment, many people are using twitter to tell the world what they are doing at a particular moment in time. I just don’t get it. I know that Euan is an afficionado, and indeed gives valid examples such as this one of when twitter conveys an action/emotion/thought that conveys the zeitgeist effortlessly.
Even so, the thought that people out there want to read what I’m writing was a hard thing to come to terms with. The thought that anyone cares what I’m doing/feeling at any moment during the day is a step too far for me at the moment. I certainly haven’t got the time to read content from all the blogs that I wish I had time to put in my RSS reader. If I wasto add the twitterverse to that lot – I’d never get anything else done. Added to which (being a bit selfish I suppose) I’m not really that interested in reading anyone else’s twitters. Maybe I’m missing something here……
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