(for immediate release)
Friday, October 16th, 1998

Avatars98 Inside Cyberspace and Everywhere
Major Online Conference to be held Nov 21 1998
http://www.ccon.org/conf98/

SCOTTS VALLEY, California: The Contact Consortium will be hosting a
breakthrough cyberspace event: a large global conference held entirely inside
graphical virtual worlds on the net. These worlds will be inhabited by
thousands of guests graphically embodied as 'avatars'. The cyberconference
will feature the debut of new technologies never seen before on the
Internet including a 3D exhibit hall with booths from numerous universities,
government agencies such as NASA, internet design studios, companies
and individual netizens complementing an all-day show full of online
speakers, art shows,  the annual 'Avvy Awards', webcasts and special
guest appearances. The virtual tradeshow floor will pioneer a new approach
to Internet Commerce, while the speakers and virtual community activities
connecting two-dozen physical get-togethers will tie in the whole planet and
open a new medium for distance education and global cultural advancement.

"Avatars98 represents the closest thing yet to cyberauthors William Gibson,
Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson's vision of a greater inhabited
Cyberspace. In this event, we will pioneer new concepts in community,
i-commerce, education online, and entertainment all in one go", says Bruce
Damer, co-director of Contact Consortium, an organization dedicated to the
advancement of living, learning and working in virtual worlds.


"As we enter the new millenium, we will see Cyberspace start to move
beyond the 2D, document-centric Web, and embrace virtual communities
inside living-color virtual worlds. The current explosion of communities
will transform the everyday experience of the Internet from an interface
to that of an 'enterplace', a real place to visit."

The Consortium membership, which includes sponsors and participants such as
Philips, Circle of Fire Studios, SGI, Microsoft, NTT, 3D Labs, Intel,
British Telecom, UC Santa Cruz, Sun Microsystems, Fujitsu, and Cornell
University, will be hosting this premier event on November 21st, 1998.
The event is free and open to the public and can be attended through
the portals of downloaded virtual world software available through the
conference site.

Details on Avatars98, Inside Cyberspace and Everywhere may be found at the
Contact Consortium homepage at http://www.ccon.org/ . Interested persons can
participate in the event or sign up for the Newsfeed for further updates.


Contact: 
Bruce Damer, Avatars98 Conference 
avatars98@ccon.org 
Contact Consortium 

http://www.ccon.org 
PO Box 66866, Scotts Valley CA USA 95067-6866 
(831) 338 9400

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(c) 1998 Contact Consortium. All Rights Reserved. 
---end press release---