See Copyright and Usage Notice
Avatars!
Exploring and Building
Virtual Worlds on the Internet

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the following people and companies for their help in making this book possible. Many of these people built avatar Cyberspace for the rest of us to enjoy, while others were pioneering users who showed us how to live in a virtual world.

I would like to personally thank Mark Pesce for being an inspiration in how to stay creative and stay free. A big hug for Wendy Sue Noah for days spent driving from San Francisco to Boulder Creek to beta test chapters with the virtual worlds. Allan Lundell, Sun McNamee, members of the cybertribe, and Ranger John Turner and family, are all kind neighbors kept me fed and in contact with humanity during some very isolated times. Lastly, I could not have lived without the whole Boulder Creek community and its redwoods keeping life safe, clean, wet, and green.

Thanks to the World Makers

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the people and the companies whose virtual world software is featured in the book and included on the CD-ROM:


Thanks to the studios, artists and tool makers

The creative community that designs worlds, avatars and tools are an integral part of this community and provided essential support and content for this book.

Appreciation to the students, researchers and philosophers of virtual worlds

Those who study, ponder, test, present, decompose, and wax poetic about virtual worlds have been key in moving forward my understanding of the almost infinite size of this new medium.

Thanks for getting me started in this industry

I wouldn't be here without them, so I would like to acknowledge them here.

Thanks to the book production team

Utmost appreciation to the patient and courageous team at Peachpit Press for pressing forward with what was obviously a risky new book project and a very difficult challenge (to keep up with the worlds!). Along with Peachpit, there were many other people 'on the project' who deserve mention here.


Thanks to you who agreed to appear in the book

Brave souls who agreed to take a visible role in this book, may your avatars live long and prosper!


Thanks to all you people out there in the industry who pitched in

An incredible community of talented people all made their contribution to your author's learning curve and helped make this book a true log of the development of this new medium


Thank you fellow writers

I would like to thank print journalists John Moran writing for the Hartford Courant, Natasha Wancek writing for the San Jose Mercury News, Leslie Miller writing for USA Today, David Bank writing for the Wall Street Journal, Alex Lash writing for 24 Hours in Cyberspace and C|Net, and David Pescovitz writing for the L.A. Times. Special journalistic thanks goes to Sue Wilcox for nonstop encouragement and for promoting both me and the book, whether I deserved it or not! See Sue's upcoming book (some time in 1998) on the subject of avatars. I would also like to thank Adrian Scott and John Gluck of VRMLSite for giving avatars a webzine presence.

Thanks to you citizens of Avatar Cyberspace

I could not have written a line of this book without the hundreds of users who helped me in-world and told their own stories which I have tried to faithfully reproduce. This is just a very short list of people whose avatars I would like to thank:

And the many, many other people who have helped in immeasurable ways on this book project and last but certainly not least to Alex the big black cat, who slept through the writing of this book!

Many of the people mentioned here presented at the 1996 Earth to Avatars conference. The conference is described on the Web at: http://www.ccon.org/events/conf96.html and their individual biographies and vision are at: http://www.ccon.org/events/bios.html. You can also find more contact information about the companies mentioned here on the Contact Consortium homepage at http://www.ccon.org.


© Copyright Bruce Damer, 1997-98, All rights reserved.