Instant Messaging Goes Graphical

williampiv writes "For most of the millions of people around the world who regularly use instant messaging, the communications tool has largely been a text-only experience in which typed emoticons offer only minimal clues to someone's state of mind. The recent launch of two services -- a brand new, fully three-dimensional chat-room product known as IMVU, and AOL Instant Messenger's new 3-D SuperBuddy icons -- is putting the spotlight on a major shift by the leading IM providers toward making graphical avatars a fundamental personalization feature."

Comments

MS Chat?

[softwave]

I thought Microsoft had a similar product a couple of years ago. Microsoft Chat or Comic Chat or something in the kind... You could select a comic character and assign it facial expressions and such.
It died a silent death :)

Deja Vu???

[Vexler]

A webcam pretty much does the same thing - except you don't have avatars, you ARE the avatar.

Nothing new here. :)

[Gwala]

If I may point out, this isnt anything new. Blaxxun, Activeworlds, Secondlife are all similar 3D platforms, but have a great deal more experience & interactivity (having all existed for some years now). I posted some info on my favourite 3D platform at the moment (Secondlife) here

(Also check out Activeworlds & There (nb: there is more a social use, like the topic, rather than a 3D platform on it's own.))

ActiveWorlds

[bjb]

There has been a service, ActiveWorlds for years now.. I think it opened in 1996? Basically, it is a fully 3D environment that you would walk around in, interact with other people, build houses, etc.

I haven't logged on to it in years (read: since maybe 1999), but I always remember that I thought it was pretty cool given the 3D capabilities of x86 machines at the time (read: none), and it wasn't TOO bad for dialup. Even played MIDI tracks while you were walking around. I think they eventually went to a pay-for-service model, and hopefully they eventually adopted some kind of 3D acceleration technology (via ActiveX?)

just a toy

[PerlDudeXL]

I'm probably just too much of an IRC addict to like the idea.

"[..] It feels a little like a solution in search of a problem. [..]"

Come on, text-based chats are more than enough
for easy real-time communication. If you want
something fancy use a Webcam-chat or video-conferencing instead.

Not suited for everything...

[Sidicas]

"IMVU gives you the sense that you are in the presence of the person you are chatting with,"

Wow, that sucks. Now I'm not going to put any family members in my buddy list.

What

[BAILOPAN]

Honestly, not only has this been done before with other chat clients (didn't Microsoft have a failed attempt), but what's the point? Who would actually use this? When I use AIM I specifically disable smilies and such because they're annoying... why would I now want disembodied aliens on my intarweb screen? AIM having those "themed" IM windows in 5.0 was a terrible idea. They just keep adding more crap into their client, kind of how they ruined ICQ.

Re:Been There

[killmenow]

SW:G? I thought a graphical, 3D chat environment was a coffee shop...or maybe a strip club if you want more graphics.

Re:Been There

[3terrabyte]

"she's not sure it is going to be the big hit the IM services want it to be. 'I think it's kind of short-lived....it's one of those faddish things that people are going to want to have for a while" *GROAN*
I know I'm getting old, but come on. This crap has been tried before, and it wasn't a success then, it's not going to succeed now. To be truly revolutionary, you need to either get more immersed in an online world (covered by Everquest, etc), or more graphical with your own face (Covered by web cams, etc). Personally I think the 'next big thing in chatting' is next to impossible to reach because the very things that make it the next big thing, go against what makes chatting work right now. Text. Why not voice. Or vid phone. Or the telephone? Text is great because it allows you to ignore people, allows you time to think about your thoughts before replying. Allows you to be away for a while. Text is also small. Can you imagine trying to run 4 other apps while chatting with someone with those big goofy graphics? Not only that, but how do you manage multiple people? I'm sure some guys are really into 1-on-1 cyber chatting with fake girls, but text allows managing of multiple/random/sporadic/temporary chatters. "So AIM is charging $2 for each SuperBuddy a user buys. The company sees SuperBuddies a little bit like ring tones -- one-off customizations for a communications tool. And AIM hopes its customers won't stop at one SuperBuddy, but that they'll want different ones for different moods." Yea. The dot.com crap just keeps going...