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		The Companion Website Enter the Avatar Teleport

As a service to you honored readers of Avatars! we have built a colorful companion web site. This web site will give you updated information on the worlds featured in this book, let you know about happenings inside the worlds and about new worlds which have appeared since this book was written. You can go straight to the Companion Website by pointing your web browser to: http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars. Bookmark this site and don't be afraid to share it with your friends, the more avatars the better!

The Avatar Teleport, the Companion Website for this Book
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A Tour of the Companion Website, the Avatar Teleport

You can view the Avatar Teleport with any web browser supporting tables. This includes Netscape 2.0 or higher, Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 or higher or other browsers such as your America Online, Prodigy or CompuServe World Wide Web browsers. Point your web browser to: http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars and lets get started! Dear reader, please take note that these web pages may look slightly different by the time this book is in print. We are constantly updating them for your benefit. The basic format we will describe here will not change, however.

Your companion website is packed with resources about virtual worlds and the avatars that live in them. Here is a short list of what you will find there:

The Solar System of Virtual Worlds

• World Guides: as you can see in the preceding figure, a ring of digital planets sends you to custom pages for each virtual world described in Avatars! and new worlds that have come online since the book went into print. Each World Guide has preview images and news of the world, instructions for downloading it from the Internet and copious links to Web sites by users of the world. Also included is a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) for each world. If the software on your book CD-ROM is out of date or there is a problem installing or connecting to a particular world, just visit its World Guide for help.
• Ordering more copies of Avatars! through its publisher, Peachpit press: click on the glowing teleport in the center of the digital planets and go to the Avatars book ordering page. Tell your friends, give it as a gift to your cube-mate, or order a box of books for your class! You can also find Avatars through Amazon books, and in Borders Books and Music and fine bookstores everywhere.
• World News and Hot Links: for each world and the whole virtual worlds industry is available here.
• Build Worlds, Design Avatars: takes apprentice world builders to links for tools and techniques to build your own world and design your own virtual personae.
• Life in Digital Space: takes you to key sites like Biota.org where you can witness the birth of artificial life inside the new virtual world cyberspace and even hatch or plant something of your own.

Figure 15.2: bookw2.jpg
BookWorld, a virtual bookstore constructed just for you, readers of Avatars!
Click here to get Print Resolution Version bookw2.jpg

Extra Bonus Stuff

• The Avatars! BookWorld: a virtual world has been constructed just for you, dear readers of Avatars! Come in and meet your author in his avatar DigiGardener and peruse an complete on-line bookstore with your friends. Find a teleport to the BookWorld on the companion Web site. The first Book World is brought to you through Active Worlds by Circle of Fire Studios (see: http://www.activeworlds.com and Colors of Life (at: http://www.colorsoflife.nl).
• Upcoming Events in Avatars Cyberspace: learn about upcoming lectures, conferences, user group meetings or events inside virtual worlds. The author or his organization, the Contact Consortium are always on the road talking about the new cyberspace.
• A Complete Sample Chapter: Alphaworld and Active Worlds, green planet is featured here in all of its glory. Here you will find the complete building 101 guide and bonus images and links we could not fit into the book. Show your friends this chapter and I hope they too will rush out and get the book!
• Take An Advanced Course at Avatar University: the Web site has links to a great set of on-line course notes for educators or eager students of the virtual. These notes contain a great Netiquette and Community Hosting Guide, Applications of Virtual Worlds in the Home, Classroom and at Work, the History of the Virtual Worlds Medium, and the Technology Underlying the Medium.
• Extended Bibliography: these pages extend the bibliography in Avatars!
• The Latest Glossary: including the full Glossary in the book, this indexed page contains some new words. Learn the Lingo of the new cyberspace and send us a new word or two.
• Interviews: featuring some exclusive conversations with the pioneers and philosophers of the new cyberspace. Some of the author's interviews will be featured here also.
• Ways to Contact the Avatars! Book Author with feedback: Bruce Damer and the whole Peachpit team would like to hear from you about your experience with your Avatars! book and welcome your suggestions for the next edition. Simply fill out the form on the Web site or email us directly here at: avatars@digitalspace.com.
• About the Author: see what DigiGardener really looks like and yes, he had a life outside of avatar cyberspace!
• Avatars Art Gallery and Original Art from Roger Zuidema: see Roger Zuidema's famous Avatar Bar Scene from the book in our Avatars Art Gallery. As time goes on, we will add more avatar art into this gallery. Got a favorite screen shot, designed a great avatar? Then submit it for our gallery!
• Avatars Link Bazaar and Broken Link Zone: got a link to share with the avatar users community? Then submit it to us and we will see if we can post it here or under the World Guides. If a link in the book or on the Web site does not work, let us know and we will try to post its new link. If it is truly a dead link, we will post it in the Broken Link Zone.
• Join the Order of the Avatars User Group: sign up for our mailing list and talk to other Avatars like yourself! When you want to get serious about projects in virtual world cyberspace, you can join the Contact Consortium by visiting http://www.ccon.org.
• News about upcoming new editions of Avatars!: we hope you will like the book so much that we will have to make another edition!
• The Making of Avatars!: read about the unusual way this book was put together, from its development as a huge Web site to interviews inside virtual worlds.
• Errata: if we goofed, can you forgive us? This section will have a complete listing (to the best of our knowledge) of errors in the book.