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<font size=3>Yvonne (and others):<br><br>
It's not clear from your posting whether you really mean only the Web
itself, or chat that is directly accessed from the Web, or chat
most generally. Maybe my work on visual communication on IRC is relevant;
in my book _Cyberpl@y: Communicating Online_ (Berg, Oxford, 2001) I
devoted a chapter to 2 channels that communicate on IRC mainly via the
display of images that are an elaboration of ASCII art. Players add the
nick of a recipient to be greeted before displaying a file. <br><br>
One of the channels, "colors", has meanwhile closed down, but
the other, called "rainbow," continues to flourish, and I am
writing a whole new book about them now. There are other IRC channels
devoted to this phenomenon too.<br><br>
The entire chapter about this form of art as communication, including all
color and black and white illustrations, is the sample chapter on the
book's Website, and can be accessed at<br>
<a href="http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdanet/cyberpl@y/" eudora="autourl">http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msdanet/cyberpl@y/</a>
(best viewed in Internet Explorer). There is also a text-only pdf version of the chapter available for downloading.<br><br>
This phenomenon is very different from visual enhancement of what is basically typed textual chat, as in comics-like environments, The Palace, or 3D graphical interfaces for typed chat.<br><br>
Regards, Brenda<br>
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