I just popped into a "mixed reality event" called "Virtual Worlds—The Rules of Engagement" taking place both on Innovation Island in Second Life as well as at the Computer History Museum in San Jose, CA.
It was a pretty weird experience. I (as in my avatar pictured right) was sitting in a large auditorium with 30-ish other avatars, watching a large movie screen, onto which was projected the video webcast of a panel discussion taking place in San Jose. The panel I saw featured
Nicole Lazzaro, President of XEODesign; Susan Choe, of StrayFish; Wagner James Au, In-World Journalist for SecondLife; and Danah Boyd, Social Media Researcher at Yahoo! Research.
In the auditorium with me were a rambunctious bunch of random avatars, including various plushies, demons, cyborgs, and … SL founder Phil Rosendale and Technorati guru Joi Ito. (Mr. Ito will actually be speaking at the closing ceremony of the conference.)
At one point, one the presenters was showing a video on the screen behind her of someone playing World of Warcraft. I realized at that moment that I was watching my avatar who was watching a webcast of someone in San Jose who was watching a video of a gamer playing a MMORPG on her PC.
Turtles, turtles, turtles all the way down….