Development of a Social Proxy for Support the Meetings in Second Life

Abstract

This paper describes the process of developing an application called Social Proxy, including specification, implementation and programming model. Social Proxy is a minimalist view of the presence and activities of participants in online interactions[2]. The application was developed to support collaborative meetings in Second Life, 3D collaborative virtual environment chosen as the setting for this work. Our Social Proxy is called SP HUD, a component that provides a third person view allowing a clearer view of the group’s activities. Thus, we are able to see all the avatars present in the shared space and know the interaction forms of each participant. Social Proxy is a component that is part of a larger project and this paper we present the activities performed, the challenges encountered and preliminary results.