I was just reading the developer blog for VastPark, specifically the "9 Rules" for virtual worlds written in 2007. I had meandered over from Evolver, which is a business trying to get cross-platform avatars up and running (with whom VastPark is compatible) - which must come for the 3d web to flourish. Although the blog post is two years old - or maybe because it's two years old - I found it an interesting read.

Under Rule 4: "There's a huge opportunity in virtual characters that are highly interactive and portable. These are both the future of personalisation and of brand advertisers developing direct relationships with us..." -- Bruce Joy

The decentralised content thing - can't see how it would work, at all, however my interest (right now) is just to own a traveling avatar and flit from place to place in it. It's good to revisit people's thoughts about virtual reality - it's forming around us like a chrysalis yet to harden - quite exciting.

And my first thought was - Rule 10 is that there need to be Avatar Rights like is excellently included on Metaplace by Raph Koster. I was happy when I saw that, way back when, especially since I've been semi-obsessed with the idea since 2003 when I first ran into the Uru diaspora, and then in 2004 when There told us the service was going down (no further fixes, no devs + no guarantee of continuance past six months 90 days). It was (it felt) like they'd encouraged us to give life to our avatars but then abruptly pulled it all away as though it meant nothing to them (probably didn't).This was my take at the time: "Contemplating Annihilation"

9 rules... - worth reading.

Hey Enj -