LO – My inspiration

An interactive project that I had known about was called Online Town (URL: https://theonline.town). Online Town essentially was a type of video chatting, except that it required each user to “walk around town.” Each user would have an icon/character, and you would use your keyboard to move it around the town shown on the screen. With a specific chat room link, you could invite friends, and they too would also have to move around. The program used your camera and microphone, and in order to hear what your friends were saying in the chat, you would have to use your keyboard to get your character near their character. This was a very cool concept to me, and my friends and I often used it during quarantine.

The program was created by Cyrus Tabrizi, Phillip Wang, and Kumail Jaffer. It launched in early April of 2020. Though there have been editing and adjustments made throughout the project, the creators claimed to have built the first version of Online Town within a single day. They received some seed funding and used their own money to fund the project. It was not explicitly stated how they had divided the work up, but all three creators are highly skilled in programming and even have a tech collective on their resumes.

Because this project is recent and there is not enough information about it yet from the creators, I do not know whether the project required the development of custom software/scripts or “off-the-shelf” software. The creators might have been inspired by programs like Zoom and Minecraft, as they have combined both video chat features and map exploring features.

I think this project opens up the opportunity of having more engaging and social calls. This would serve as a great alternative to Zoom, especially for social meetings or large business meetings. Without the harsh separation of participants into breakout rooms (like Zoom), Online Town allows for participants to ease into groups or even opt out of them, as well as exploring the map with their avatar. I think this would help point to a future where video calls can motivate higher engagement levels in more ways than just talking in a group conversation.