1. Founder, Chief Scientist
Virtual Rendezvous
Charles L. Perkins
Founder, Chief Scientist

2. Early experiences Virtual, Social, Interactive Worlds:
PLATO (1975-6,79-80), Advent (80)
the Net, Object-Oriented thinking:
ARPAnet ( ), Usenet (1980-6)
Smalltalk ( ), Xerox PARC (84)

3. Research background Academic, corporate labs, alternately:
Harvard Univ. ( , 86-90)
Verbex (1982) ➱ Dragon Systems
U.C.Berkeley (1983-4), MIT (80-3)
Thinking Machines (1985-6)

4. Early contributions NeXT, NeXTWORLD (1989-93) 1-800-Wildfire (1990-1)
VRML, α-world, SIMnet (1992-5)
Java, rendezvous.com/java ( )
IMPP (1998-9) ➱ XMPP, IETF ( )

5. Company relationships
3DO, US West, Time Warner (FSN)
Continental Cablevision ➱ Comcast
firstperson ➱ Java, Firefly, Abuzz
Alexa ➱ “What’s Related” in Netscape
DimensionX ➱ Keen.com, TellMe

6. Virtual Rendezvous A Set of Ideas An Evolving Design
A Set of Prototype Implementations
A Community of Virtual Collaborators
A Foundation for Standards, a Platform

7. Rendezvous principles
Loosely Coupled, Elegant, Simple
Embrace and Define Open Standards
The Opposite of Not-Invented-Here
Only Social Relationships matter
yet allow people, software symbiosis

8. Universal standards Interlocking, but Loosely coupled
Built above existing IETF, Open APIs
Separates Naming from Protocol, API
Defines the Atoms in a Periodic Table of Connections and Relationship Elements

9. Ubiquitous platform At all Times, In all Places, Forever
Across all devices, existing and future
Provides useful Molecules, Compounds
Policy-less, but with intelligent Defaults
Allows many forms of Chemistry

10. Rendezvous concepts
Persona
Context
Activity
Facet
Relationship

11. Persona definition Fundamental unit of (Multiple) Identity
Pseudononymous not Anonymous
Embodies Mood, Aspects of Your Self
Everyone has a growing number, 2-12+
One is Special: your True Name

12. Persona examples Username, Screenname, OpenID, etc.
Avatar (3D), Icon, Facebook ... URLs
Home, Work, Gaming, Porn-browsing
Home Business, Social Butterfly, Hermit
... / goal / social / seeking / soulmate

13. Context definition Fundamental unit of Place, Location
Embodies both Nearness, Where-ness
Has the Set of Persona currently There
Has a default Group (Shared Activity)
Every Persona has a unique Home

14. Context examples URL, URI, canonical URN
... / SecondLife / <Region> / X, Y, Z
Spherically close to named Landmark
... / Rendezvous / Virtual / Telephony
Running an Application, Watching Video

15. Activity definition Group (Set) of Personas, engaged in...
Any Shared Activity, Task, Goal, Hope
Has Collaboration, Communication Tech
Embodies both Means and Purpose
Lives in a Context, which rarely changes

16. Activity examples Chatroom, IRC channel, IM conversation
/slashdot-like thread, blog Users
Set of Avatars near one another in 3D
On the telephone, a Physical meeting
Set of Persona browsing a domain, URL

17. Facet definition
an Aspect of any Persona, Context, Activity (Group), or Relationship
Has a Type (System, Name) and a Value
Blends Data and Behaviour seamlessly
Allows sophisticated Visibility Control

18. Facet examples .../address/street/number: Java,int,42
XML schemas, data ⇔ graph of Facets
Radically distributed Native XML DBs
Storage of useful (or personal) Info
the Platform UI is built using Facets

19. Relationship definition
Explicitly represents Implicit P2Persona:
Family, Spouse, Intimate Friend
Friend, (Business) Acquaintance
Talked-to, Touched, Seen, Near
UML Superset: 1:1, 1:many, Set, Graph

20. Relationship examples
RDF, OWL, Open Cyc, Ontologies
M-language Concept graph ⇔ XML
Bob <.../eros/unrequited/work> Alice
aContext <1:many, Set> aPersona
aNode <many:many, Ordered> aNode2

21. Rendezvous naming Every Entity has a Concept-Unique ID
Every Entity has a Canonical Name
Stored in a Directed Acyclic Graph
Created, Updated via Web graphs
Extendible by Users, Vetted and Not
Entities inherit from multiple Parents

22. Name examples You’ve seen several in previous slides
.../service/intangible/virtual/world/sex
M-language dictionary word Senses
.../shop.2/clothes, .../social.3/women
➯ .../URL/com/name/-http- /path/.../leaf

23. Platform concepts Across all Web, Social, Virtual worlds:
Presence, and One Way to update it
Identity, and One Place to change it
Reputation, Guaranteed Useful
Value (Attention), Asset Movement

24. Platform goals Ever-growing Ubiquity, Universality
Always the best way to see/find People
Always the best way to manage Yourself
People/SW Service, Stranger Discovery
People Browser via Web of Relationship
Everything Extensible by Everyone

25. Platform features Manages a Web of People not just URLs
Spans all Devices, Fixed and Portable
Blends Real-time, Store & forward
Automatic Web login, service, download
Radically distributed, shared Resources
Manages personal Info, Access, Privacy

26. Platform status Research partnerships in place:
MIT, Google, FSF, others (ask)
Open Sources identified, investigated
Prototypes of browser/server in Java
P2P/Jxta, Ruby implementation started
Detailed Design, User Stories, on-going

27. Future needs an Executive Director for Business Dev.
Additional Partnerships, Sponsors
Funding, Donations of Money, open SW
The Virtual Rendezvous Foundation
You! ➯ enthusiastic, growing Community

28. Contact info
VirtualRendezvous at G-mail
Visit if you’re near Harvard Square
Q & A, during the Cocktail Reception