Virtual communities and multimedia virtual conference-an ambassador-based approach

The concepts of virtual communities are introduced and an ambassador-based approach to virtual conference is presented. While the client-server model is the dominating model for distributed systems design and development, we observe that the bilateral nature of the client-server model in message passing is sometimes a barrier to flexible cooperation and collaboration among a virtual community (distributed human agents and computer agents), especially for collaboration in a WAN environment. The ambassador model provides a complement to the client-server model. The new model is messenger-based. It allows multimedia virtual agents or messengers (servers/clients+data+social protocols) to be maintained and dispatched; it avoid unnecessary multimedia synchronization over a WAN; and it enables unilateral social protocol design and selection. We present a prototype multimedia virtual conference environment and demonstrate, with examples, a few valuable features pertaining to the ambassador-based approach to multimedia collaboration environment