One of the most intriguing aspects of cyberspace is the possibility of building a new sense of community that most people have lost. People have gotten a sense of community from the old electronic bulletin boards, as well as from newsgroups and even chatrooms, but some people have gone the next step, taking the metaphor of cyberSPACE literally, and have been building virtual places, as first envisioned by William Gibson in his pioneering cyberpunk (short history) novel Neuromancer (and featured more recently in the film The Matrix). The first communities were text-based (Called MUDs or MOOs which have raised some interesting questions about the nature of freedom and reality. For example, is rape possible in cyberspace?). Now some MOOs are using the WWW as well, but the next phase will be not only graphical, but 3-D (see below). In these worlds you can buy virtual real estate and have a body of sorts that you can travel in, called an avatar. Jaron Lanier and Howard Rheingold have some interesting ideas about the possibilites, as does Bruce Damer.
Here are some addresses of some MUDs you can visit, but please remember that you're a guest, so behave accordingly (as in all aspects of cyberspace, sometimes people don't welcome intrusions of "newbies," and may let you know this gently or rudely, but most people want these worlds to live and grow, and thus welcome visitors. It's a bit easier to function in these worlds if you have special free software such as MUDDweller, but you can usually manage just by using Telnet. Some of these may no ;onger exist:
Baymoo.sfsu.edu 8888 (this is for Telnet; with MUDDweller, the 4 digit number goes in the port box).
Diversity University: moo.du.org 8888
Collegetown: next.cs.bvc.edu 7777
Berkeley Writing and other classes use: moolano.berkeley.edu 8888
(This site has basic MOO commands, if you can get in.)
Some MOOs have a web interface that might be a bit easier:
http://sensemedia.net/world or http://sensemedia.net/sprawl
TappedIn.org
3-D Worlds
Virtual UCSC recreates the campus in 3D space you can walk around and intereact with other people. Virtual College 8 is Patrick McKercher's experiment in community building, and finding new ways to educate on the environment, and to do tutoring with students all over California. Here are some others (agaim some of these may be gone:
adobe atmosphere
ThePalace.com (requires its own free downloadable Mac or PC software)
Alphaworld (requires Activeworlds software in AS and SS PC labs)
Oz Virtual
Worldsaway.com (Mac friendly?)
Virtual Places
biota.org
digitalspace.com