The JVWR, Volume 1, No. 1

Published: July 1, 2008

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The editorial team for this issue includes:

Jeremiah Spence, University of Texas, USA

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 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. We have a fantastic collection of articles that provide the foundation for the transdisciplinary field of virtual worlds research.

Original call CFP: Research – Past, Present & Future.

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Issue Editors’ Corner

Editor’s Introduction

Jeremiah Spence

Invited Articles

Cityspace, Cyberspace, and the Spatiology of Information

Michael L. Benedikt

Another Time, Another Space: Virtual Worlds, Myths and Imagination

Maria Beatrice Bittarello

Meeting in the Ether: A brief history of virtual worlds as a medium for user-created events

Bruce Damer

The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat

Chip Morningstar, F. Randall Farmer

Virtual communities – exchanging ideas through computer bulletin boards

Howard Rheingold

Research Papers

Inductive Metanomics: Economic Experiments in Virtual Worlds

Stephen A Atlas

Virtual World and Real World Permeability: Transference of Positive Benefits for Marginalized Gay and Lesbian Populations

Jonathan Cabiria

Help – Somebody Robbed my Second Life Avatar!

James Elliott, S E Kruck

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

A Typology of Virtual Worlds: Historical Overview and Future Directions

Paul R. Messinger, Eleni Stroulia, Kelly Lyons

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

Research-in-brief papers

Avatars Are For Real: Virtual Communities and Public Spheres

Eiko Ikegami, Piet Hut

3D3C Real Virtual Worlds Defined: The Immense Potential of Merging 3D, Community, Creation, and Commerce

Yesha Sivan

Second Life Mixed Reality Broadcasts: A Timeline of Practical Experiments at the NASA CoLab Island

Stephanie Smith

Monographs

How Open Source Software Will Affect Virtual Worlds

Francis X. Taney, Jr.

“Think pieces”

Toward a Definition of “Virtual Worlds”

Mark W Bell

Defining Virtual Worlds and Virtual Environments

Ralph Schroeder