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Advantages of Second Life over web-conferencing

Experience - whereas video is a one-way, passive experience, SL is a group one. This is a completely different dynamic, if the presentation makes use of it. If they just passively show a video, they might as well be on the web. Think of it, when done well, as comparing sitting in a movie vs at a comedy show where the audience can yell out comments that are instantly worked into the skit. Collaboration - participants get a completely different experience when they 'see' each other. It is more involving and interactive. This gives the speaker a chance to gather instant feedback, adjusting the presentation on the fly. There is even software for SL that allows participants to give feedback at specified times via their keyboard. Also, we find that "leaders" emerge in virtual focus groups, who often bring out information from others but don't dominate as they might in a "real" focus group. Screening - starting with a larger group, sub-groups can be created based on criteria such as beginners, those giving great feedback, gender, etc. These avatars can be instantly transported into other prepared rooms or SL environments for follow up, further Q&A, take a tour, etc. Also, participants can click on each other's profiles and learn about each other, something many like to do.

Spatiality - in a three-dimensional space people can move, and use proximity and distance to each other or to objects (for example for group building, voting by feet, to 'physically' separate collaboration tasks from one another, or just to non-verbally communicate preferences). In video conferencing, all you see is somebody else's mimics. There is no concept of space at all - which is crucial, however: remember Nonaka's Ba. Embodiment - being virtually embodied as an avatar can augment the feeling of co-presence, the feeling of being there together with your colleagues, peers, or collaboration team, etc. Directing your virtual representation, you visualize where your attention is at every point in time. In a video conference, nobody knows if you are paying attention or just looking at a totally different application on your screen. Configurability and scriptability - a virtual world can be more than a container for space, physics and avatars. Realized as a reactive, interactive and maybe even intelligently behaving environment it can harbor, support, and augment rich user experiences.

ou can hear the text which people are writing to the textchat as a human voices! You can stream using Second Life voicechat your chat text by a human voice of your selection - man or woman voice, any language, accent, age etc. (basic english voices included, fairly usable, but for better results it's needed to get professional voices from internet) You can even use speech recognition and convert in text what you are telling to the microphone!

And what exactly is E.V.A.? Is is a special software voice interface for Second Life (for MS-Windows platform and S.A.P.I. 5 only so far). Simply said - it is a "text to speech" and "speech to text" software interface connected to the SL text chat, an enhancement of the Second Life integrated voice chat or is even usable without it.

Question: How is program getting text from the SL? Will I need to setup something in prefferences? Answer: Yes, you will need to enable chat logging at the Comunication tab in SL prefferences panel. Program is reading the text from the chat log file