Vol 1, No 1 (2008)

Virtual Worlds Research: Past, Present and Future

Issue Editor: Jeremiah Spence, University of Texas, USA

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the JVWR on the theme of “Virtual Worlds Research: Past, Present and Future”. The launch of the Journal and the publication of this first edition builds on the efforts of a large team of researchers and collaborators spread across the world. These 17 papers provide the foundation for the transdisciplinary field of virtual worlds research.

Table of Contents

Issue Editors' Corner

Editor’s Introduction
Jeremiah Spence
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Invited Articles

Cityspace, Cyberspace, and the Spatiology of Information
Michael L. Benedikt
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Another Time, Another Space: Virtual Worlds, Myths and Imagination
Maria Beatrice Bittarello
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Meeting in the Ether: A brief history of virtual worlds as a medium for user-created events
Bruce Damer
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The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat
Chip Morningstar, F. Randall Farmer
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Virtual communities - exchanging ideas through computer bulletin boards
Howard Rheingold
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Research Papers

Inductive Metanomics: Economic Experiments in Virtual Worlds
Stephen A Atlas
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Virtual World and Real World Permeability: Transference of Positive Benefits for Marginalized Gay and Lesbian Populations
Jonathan Cabiria
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Help – Somebody Robbed my Second Life Avatar!
James Elliott, S E Kruck
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Towards a Theoretically-Grounded Framework for Evaluating Immersive Business Models and Applications: Analysis of Ventures in Second Life
Henry M. Kim, Kelly Lyons, Mary Ann Cunningham
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A Typology of Virtual Worlds: Historical Overview and Future Directions
Paul R. Messinger, Eleni Stroulia, Kelly Lyons
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From a Video Game in a Virtual World to Collaborative Visual Analytic Tools
Theresa A. O’Connell, Yee-Yin Choong, John Grantham, Michael Moriarty, Wyatt Wong
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Research-in-brief papers

Avatars Are For Real: Virtual Communities and Public Spheres
Eiko Ikegami, Piet Hut
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3D3C Real Virtual Worlds Defined: The Immense Potential of Merging 3D, Community, Creation, and Commerce
Yesha Sivan
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Second Life Mixed Reality Broadcasts: A Timeline of Practical Experiments at the NASA CoLab Island
Stephanie Smith
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Monographs

How Open Source Software Will Affect Virtual Worlds
Francis X. Taney, Jr.
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“Think Pieces”

Toward a Definition of “Virtual Worlds”
Mark W Bell
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Defining Virtual Worlds and Virtual Environments
Ralph Schroeder
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