In Intuitive 3-D Interface: Finger Mouse, Amazon, Barriers Hiro Pendragon discusses some possible features of future second life and interface issues. One of the things that pushed my thoughts is passive browsing:
Also known as "ghost mode", Passive Browsing would let SL browsers (clients) access content in Second Life without rendering any avatars. "Ghost Mode" is a misnomer, really, because it assumes that "You can see other people, and they can't see you". This is not what I'm suggesting.
Hey, I need that! Though I agree with Gwyn who commented that
the major points of SL would be lost on an avatar-less world – no human interaction
I still think the ghost mode is a great idea. Second life is about human interaction, it is about communication, but from time to time we all need to be away from it. Just consider the way we are (trying to) read the books or in-world magazines in the second life. Usually, we attach the object to the HUD. Yes, that is an interesting hack, I praise the cleverness of whoever got that idea, but that is still a hack, not a permanent solution. Similar thing is with browsing the flat internet. At one point there will be a possibility to put a web page over the prim but that is more building feature than a way to access flatworld.
Yes, I can hear you saying that there are both alt and tab keys on my keyboard and that it is possible to easily switch between Second Life client and Firefox. It is. But, then we lose the other one of the major points of the second life: immersivenes! Since launching this blog, I am interested whether my posts would sound different if they were written in-world instead in the regular browser. Many times, I just teleport to some nice solitary place and leave my avatar there to come here to write. It seems pointless to take the risk of Second Life client freezing my whole machine (and losing current post) just for the sake of having that extra feeling of being present in the metaverse while writing.
Though avatarized presence is one of essential features of second life, there are times when our avatars are just standing in a way and when switching to a mouselook mode doesn't help. If we want to get really immersive world, we have to offer a way to get out of the "SL game" and to include things we find so real-life.
Good points.
I agree. I have an active role in SL but I am also a merchant in there. There are times when I want I want to go in just to deal with a vendor or a server and get it sorted, without being flooded with Ims, and have limited time due to rl commitments. A way of logging in as “invisble” like yahoo would be really useful sometimes
Thanks for commenting. Some six months after writing this post, I feel like I could make a wishlist for the features that I’d like to see connected with visibility of my avatar….