Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

technological developments but also their social and cultural reflections in practices of
communication.
Media convergence and collaborative design practices
Throughout their collaborations, the co-designers often use SL as a part of the larger digital media
landscape, and they reflect on experiences with several other platforms in comparison with the
affordances and constraints provided by SL. This overarching media landscape covers a number of
different platforms/tools, including Web-based interfaces and social media, other VW platforms,
several other digital content-generation tools, games and game-design software, and
future/prospective uses of the technology as reflected on by the co-designers.
The co-designers mention a variety of online platforms, including social VWs with or without usergeneration
of content and MMORPGs, mainly depending on their interests and expectations about
the affordances/constraints of SL. The selection of SL among the various possible threedimensional
VW platforms can have both practical and personal reasons. For instance, in both the
Metrotopia and the PAL cases SL is mentioned to be the only alternative for some of their purposes
such as being able to create virtual environments and controlling the flow of visitors and content
within the designed places. Caitlyn mentions several other VW platforms (including Twinity, WoW,
Habboo, Small Worlds) in comparison to SL, and concludes that SL is “still the most flexible in
terms of design.” These worlds generally afford customization, although collaborative content
generation in SL requires complex interactions and processes. For Caitlyn, the innovative potential
of SL lies in its ability to “introduc[e] new experiences, (…) new ways of doing things, new ways of
thinking about things.” In her point of view, similar to Curiza’ and Xavier’s (PAL) ideas, the future
of VWs is more segmented and specialized for the needs of prospective users, such as military,
health or education. In her vision of this segregated functionalities and differentiated contexts of
use, Caitlyn also mentions the aspect of interoperability 17 . For her, interoperability among
commercial VW platforms is not likely to happen, as platform developers have more incentives to
keep their copyrighted assets in protection, and would not allow their users/customers to re-use
and/or remix the content that was generated in one world to be used in another. Since Caitlyn’s
vision is based on the commercial Web paradigm, she also finds the potentials and possibilities of
open-source software development and the growing amount of sharing and remixing practices
online relevant to her research.
17
Transfer of avatars and assets from one platform to another
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