In the early 1990s, Mitchell Kapor wrote an article for a magazine that was a commentary on social use of the Net, and what it means to communication. At the time, the article raised awareness in a pre-virtual-world time, that there is more to communication than text. Nuances have always been a part of our interaction with others. When we cut off the nuances, communication becomes much more difficult to measure qualitatively. It is more challenging to know what the other person means or intends.

Kapor used a phrase that may well have originated with him. "Emotional bandwidth," as he called it, is that richness in human communication that gives us many of our cues. Emotional bandwidth comes from sound, inflection, pauses, gestures, and other very subtle indices. To separate communication such that we cannot use those things renders it sterile, difficult to interpret and challenging to recall.

The Net back then, when he wrote his article, was a fairly simple thing on the grand scheme. It had no great dwelling places of virtual psyche, as it does today. And yet, Kapor's article foreshadowed some of what was to come, naturally, in the development of communication. When it happened that people began using computer systems and other means for communication, the nuances were missing. But as usual, necessity begets invention. People have been striving to create realism within virtual space since the concept originated. As that is refined, more and more are trying to enable the real person behind the keyboard to "feel real" when in the virtual environment. To create that, the emotional bandwidth - the nuances - must be added into the equation again.

Sun Microsystems' Wonderland, certainly not alone among the many groups working on this aspect, has nonetheless positioned itself as a leader. With its open-source virtual world dedicated to just that social inclusion - exactly the problem of nuances in virtual environments - it has created a viable, enjoyable, and incredibly useful tool for the new, improved Web 2.0. The Wonderland virtual worlds being created out there have created a place where people can enjoy communication in glorious style, nuances and all.

A quote from one business site, referring to the work of one of today's start-ups, points directly to the concept of emotional bandwidth:
"The new generation of users wants to share experiences as they happen in a rich-media, real-time, mobile environment called "emotional bandwidth."
~Ericsson.com

These days, companies all over are starting to realize what it is that really brings the Net home to users. Many companies are beginning to address the challenge for themselves. Few have the wherewithal to create what they need, yet they are realizing that they do need it. That's where Wonderland would come in. I hope that Kapor is watching. I think he'd like it there.