I was invited to give a talk at the Second International Workshop on “Virtual Geographic Environments (VGE)’ hosted by Hong Kong Chinese University, January, 2008. The workshop was chaired by my friend, Prof Hui Lin. Joined by several leading researchers in this field, Mike Goodchild, Mike Batty, Liqiu Meng etc, I presented my thoughts “Empowering the 3D Web – extension of your lives”. I discussed two kinds of Virtual Worlds:
- Mirrored Worlds: replicas of the physical world
- Microsoft Virtual Earth, Google Earth etc
- Imaginative Worlds: computer-simulated imaginative space
- SecondLife, There etc.
Regardless which “worlds’ you are developing, the key success is about how you can master these three pieces in the world, that is, places, users (you) and things to do by you in the world (places) and apply the fundamental but complex rules of social, economical, political, ethnical and environmental to the World. I presented some fascinating progress in the developments of these worlds, a comparative analysis of these worlds, business models and use cases, as well as challenges ahead. My full presentation can be accessed from “Empowering the 3D Web: extension of your lives“.
