91热爆

Do you have an avatar?

• Tim Weber
• 25 Jan 07, 12:31 AM

Or rather, do you know what an avatar is? It鈥檚 a virtual representation of yourself in a digital world, except that you can decide to have a do-over and be virtually reborn as better looking or sporting bat wings and an extra arm 鈥� you decide.

Avatars are in fashion right now, courtesy of online world Second Life. Even the World Economic Forum sent an avatar of founder Klaus Schwab into the virtual world.

In case you ask yourself whether this is a gimmick, please note that some very big companies have already launched products in Second Life. Some firms use the virtual world for corporate meetings .

Ahem. And a not insignificant number of users is looking in virtual worlds for the same thing that attracted them to the internet: porn.

But what happens if you take on another identity? Does that other identity make you a different person? How much of yourself do you put into this avatar?

Anyway, many people already have a virtual identity. Just try to Google yourself and see some of the shocking results, said one of the participants at a session called 鈥淭he age of the avatar and multiple identities鈥�.

I will try to write this up, but want to put on record that this was one of the most rewarding sessions in Davos so far.

The secret was an eclectic panel, ranging from Skype鈥檚 Niklas Zennstroem, the Chief Researcher of Sun Microsystems John Gage, Harvard literature professor Homi Bhabha and brain surgeon Baroness Susan Greenfield to the man behind the company that runs Second Life, Mitchell Kapor鈥� and many more.

One of the brightest tech journalists around, Fortune tech editor David Kirkpatrick, did lead us through the virtual world.

Just two observations: There is this guy who spends most of his life in a virtual world (not Second Life, but World of Warcraft); he鈥檚 at level 60 (don鈥檛 ask, but some see that as an accomplishment), but he鈥檚 lost his job, wife and friends.

And then there are those who use virtual worlds to organise human rights campaigns, while some people with disabilities use Second Life as a tool to help them cope with their illness.

Let鈥檚 not open the can of worms now whether virtual worlds are good or bad for your children.

What about you? Do you live in a virtual world? And if so, is it fun or have you already given up?

UPDATE:
David asked: There are people who don't [google themselves]? It's such an obvious piece of narcissism that pretty well everyone I know online has done it. I don't understand how the results are supposed to be shocking.
Apologies, I wrote that at 0100 in the morning here, so I got slack and didn't make that point very clear. For one, a lot of people are actually kind of offline, and you won't find a lot about them when you google them (just try searching for non-geeky guys you went to school with, I've failed). Secondly, the shock is when somebody writes something about you that's nasty. Doesn't matter whether it's fair or not. But it's out there, and you will find it difficult to surpress it. But it's part of your digital identity.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |