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The MOO and the Web are fundamentally different in that MOOspaces mimic real environments--for example, to get from the MOO Entrance to the Conference Center, you must go north. In comparison, Webspaces mimic no spatial environments--to get from the Conference Homepage (analogous to the MOO Entrance) to the Conference Center, you simply click on the Center link. There's no sense of going "north" but just a sense of diving into cyberspace.
While cyber-diving can be lots of fun, it can also be disorienting. One of the biggest complains about the Web is that it's hard to navigate because users can't tell where they are. Andreas wrote Juggler as a research tool to see how using the spatial navigation metaphors of the MOOspace would help people navigate the Web as well, and he has written several papers on this subject.
Of course, the other advantage offered by the MOO is the ability to interact in almost real time with people separated by great distances. Some of the folks involved in the creation of this conference don't live in Atlanta, and we conducted our business in the MOO quite nicely.
We hope that conferees will find the ability to talk at greater length than permitted by a live conference to be both enjoyable and productive. While many conferences are making use of the Web to publish information, and others, like the CCCC, regularly use MOOs for discussion, we believe we are the first to conduct a conference using a Web/MOO interface.
So, what are you waiting for? Go back to the Help page to find out how to log into the MOO!
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