an increasing number of communication platforms have arisen in the last years - second life being just the most-hyped one - where the users are represented as "avatars". for some users this avatar is just a kind of (artificial) animated profile picture, for others it is an important part of their self representation online - not only visually but also of their personality, which CAN differ from the personality usually presented by the bodily human controlling this avatar.
is this any different from nicknames and online handles? what will happen if (ever?) more and more online communication is happening in shared virtual 3d world in the form of an avatar? are avatars human? should they be treated as such? do they have rights?
an increasing number of communication platforms have arisen in the last years where the users are represented as "avatars". the concept is critisized by some as superfluous but it seems to be gaining traction quickly. second life is currently the most-hyped platform of this kind, but a slew of others is following hard on its heels, "home" - backed by sony - one which has gotten a lot of press coverage, lately. than there is kaneva, the chinese hipihi, multiverse, a platform for creating connected virtual worlds. and there are products like there, active worlds and the open source croquet, which have been around for quite a while.
according to most research in this area, the concept of the avatar, a visual representation of myself, seems to be very important for the success of these and similar platforms. early research indicates that avatars are important for the immersive effects with some of these platforms and are shaping the "inter-personal" (or should one say "inter-avatar") communication. some behavioral patterns seem to be similar between avatars communicating and humans bodys communicating. but at the same time there are often significant differences in behavior between a human in physical space and its avatar in a synthetic environment.
is this avatar me? is it an expression of my personality? a represantation of a part of my personality? what will happen, when more and more users are travelling (parts of) the web as an avatar? when they communicate with other avatars? should avatars be treated as "me"? as humans? do they have rights? should they have rights - even when the "person behind" chooses not to reveal their identity?
