Re: al estate in cyberspace?

Torbjoern Caspersen (Torbjoern.Caspersen@ark.unit.no)
Sun, 3 Sep 1995 19:27:42 +0100

> A 3d cyberspace will probably be accessed and used quite similar to the www
> today, jumping in time and space effortlessly. But as Kevin points out,
> there be localities where distance in space is made to be an important
> parameter, e.g. in the inevitable 3d MUDs/MOOs.
>
>And this of course points out that all attempts to create "valuable
>real estate" are artificial. You can only be slowed down by some
>computer program running somewhere. Thus the consumer has to "agree"
>to be slowed down.

Right, for something to be valuable, it has to be scarce. (like burning
down all forest to make the leaf a suitable monetary unit)

>This situation is not going to change unless new distributed
>databasing technologies are developed. The problem nowadays is that
>you get 10 "flat" web pages on some subject, all of which share 90% of
>the same data, and each one has an extra 10% that's different from
>what everyone else has. So you're obliged to go through all of them.
>A sophisticated databasing system would coalesce these pages for you,
>so that you get 100% of what you want on one "virtual" web page.
>
>If that technology ever comes about, then people will access
>Cyberspace in terms of _descriptions_, and not in terms of _space_.
>"Awesome descriptions" will be precious, not "virtual real estate."
>This has many consequences for how Cyberspace will be structured.

YES! If only this was the case. I guess the lack of this is the price to be
paid for cyberspace's (html) open 'standard'. Do you have any suggestions
on how to make a description system for a 3d cyberspace?

[Commercial: I'd like to remind you all of my theis, still ticking, still
available at:
<URL=http://www.stud.unit.no/~casper/thesisindex.html>
]

-----------------------------------------
Torbjoern Caspersen casper@due.unit.no
http://www.stud.unit.no/~casper/
Student of Architecture
at the Norwegian faculty of technology, NTH, Trondheim.