From Textual Chats to Interest Groups in 3D Virtual Space

Abstract

While the textual chat is a highly popular tool for various kinds of social interactions, its extension to the visual three-dimensional domain remains almost untouched and without practical utilization yet. This paper discusses advantages and disadvantages of spatial virtual environment when used as a platform for connecting people and serving for social and cultural interaction. The differences between textual chat and interest groups in virtual reality are highlighted with the aim to overcome the gap between well-established chat technology and promising but still a bit exotic virtual reality approach. Theoretical analysis is followed by several examples taken from experimental setup.