Virtual Interactive Communities: Capita Selecta in Multi-disciplinary Demand-Driven Research

Nowadays, virtual communities are an integral part of the Internet experience. Prime examples are the 3D communities such as Second Life and There.com. At the other end of the spectrum, simpler social Web applications such as Facebook are more popular than ever. All of these applications share a common background (instant communication, large user groups,...) but vary greatly in their capabilities. In this paper, we will focus on three of the aspects required for virtual interactive communities: communication, visualization and scalability. Instead of sticking to a theoretical discussion, we will show state-of-the-art examples, based on actual projects that are undertaken on demand from the industry and in a multi-disciplinary context.