The following press release is also available as a text
file.
(for immediate release)
Monday, October 12th, 1998
Avatars98 Inside Cyberspace and Everywhere
Major Online Conference to be held Nov 21 1998
http://www.ccon.org
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
###
(c) 1998 Contact Consortium. All Rights Reserved.
---end press release---
Opportunities for sponsorship
exhibits, speaking
and other volunteer contributions
are available. Please feel free to contact
us.