differences between IM programs and 3d environments

what are the qualitative differences between the regular IM program and a 3D environment?
What is different about the kinds of socialising that happens in these spaces? Does the 3D aspect make much difference? In other words, are there things that are possible in one space that are not possible in the other? Could you think of where this sort of application might lead us?

In these worlds, you could be a totally different person and at the same time be yourself. In msn messenger, you usually come across as yourself. It is very quick access however where the other ones a more time consuming. When it comes to socialisng, such worlds are more exciting becasue you can actually see yourself interacting with other people. Where in msn messenger, you can't. The 3d aspect definitely makes a difference, you can control yourself to do actions around the surroundings. It is exciting because it allows you to see things in a different perspective. Its somewhat like a video game, the only difference is you chat and socialize and it isnt a game. In saying that however, there is this trick that encourages you to chat more. In worlds like IMVU and Habbo, you can receive free credits, depending on how you often you chat. This enables you to buy things and so on. Having the advantage to win stuff for your character also excites you.
Having the opportunity to go inot different worlds spices up the sitution, if your on msn messenger at home at your upset whilst talking to friends, you can't really escape that situation. Whereas in these 3d worlds you can make yourself feel better by escaping your 'real' situation and current location to somewhere you wish you could be. Also is your feeling down, it could be possible that youyrt friends send you gifts such as in IMVU. This cannot be don't on simple msn messenger.

IMV is created by the same person who made Sims. There you have the advantage of creating yourself to whoever you want to be. You can pick ur name, and search people whereas in msn you cant. Along with this, there are advertisments in the world and things for sale where you can buy. People might prefer this better than msn because it gives you a reason to chat. If you chat there is a deal that you can get credits. With your person you can make him have an expression, or tell him to jump or clap and he will.


Habbo has a lot of distractions, you can look at games, win stuff, its not really a world but your room where you can design it and express yourself.
Activeworld you can pick your worlds.

Australian

This is a picture I took of my friend who was at the cricket match with a really tall man. This image was originally very Australia. Firstly, all Australians love their sport, secondly, there was a picture of the 4x beer; Australians love their beer, beer+sport= the perfect Australian day out. Thirdly, the colours yellow and green that they were wearing are very Australian.

Using Photoshop I tried to emphasize Australianess. In this picture I used the clone stamp to transfer the Australian flag in the background, making it look like it was pinned up there and also transfered a picture of a kangeroo onto the mans t-shirt. I'm sure I have made it clear that the picture is Australian, especially the Australian flag. It gives it away automatically.

Celebrity

This picture, I think represents celebrity. She has the whole package. Firstly i just took a photo of my sister with the simply materialistic things like sunglasses, phone, bags and a pet dog ( I didn't have a dog so I put my cat in the bag).

Using Photo shop I made celebrity look more realistic. I had to find pictures of bags because I had some cheap bags in the photo and copied and pasted the juicy couture bag on the left hand side, i touched it up by using eraser. Then, since celebrities on buy branded clothes, I went to find a label to put on her t-shirt, again, using copy and paste and touching it up with the eraser. To turn my cat into the dog I had tocopy and paste it onto my image, resize it and frame it so it covered my cat. I erased the messy bits at the end.I used the burberry pattern on my other bag to make it look expensive.Overall I think I went quite well representing a celebrity. (Paris Hilton was my inspiration haha)

Friends

Theirs not much you can do with photoshop to emphazie friends. I wanted to take a picture of a present and that could represent friends and then I could transfer my friends to the picture but I am running out of time so I grabed a photo I already took. Putting a different face in there, enables me to put in more of my friends if they were missing or not having been able to make it. I also used the magic wand I think it was to erase a girl in there, that I'm not that close to and replaced it with a girl that is already in there as you can see if you look closely up the top. I also put in a message that emphasize the meaning of friends: "We love you" ahhhh Isn't that nice of the?"

Sports

I took this photo of my sister in a dancing competition . I think that dancing is a kind of sport, however, using photoshop I had to emphazie the meaning of sports, so, I put in a couple of soccor and tennis balls. These sorts of balls represent sport more effectively. Having these balls put in there (cutting, pasting, transforming the size, then erasing) might make you think that there are balls involve in what might look like as gymnastics since balls can be used in gymnastics

COMMUNICATION

I like this photo hahah. The sign that I put in there was one I took last year at biology lake. It was the funniest thing. We went to South Stradbroke and there was this lake called brown lake and infront of it had this sign: Bathers only. I was like what is that supposed to mean hahahah. It could mean many different things and shows how unclear some communication can be. I thought maybe this means we weren't allowed to swim naked, or no car washing or container washing lol because Aboriginals live there and might wash there stuff. Anyway I thought it was funny hahahahahahaha. Moving on, I took a photo of my sisters communicating on the couch. That communication represents speech and the sign represents written communication. I think both represent communication and by putting the sign in emphasizes the meaning of communication even more.