Linda Stone Documentary Web Page Linda Stone Director, Virtual Worlds Group Microsoft Research Microsoft Corporation Virtual Worlds A discussion of various design issues involved in creating virtual chats and virtual worlds. Linda Stone is the director of Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group. For over a decade, Stone has been a leader in the effort to create both community and content on the computer. Since joining Microsoft Corporation in December of 1993, she has focused on improving human social interactions in cyberspace. She created and now directs Microsoft's virtual worlds team, a joint effort by engineers, artists, and animators to develop multi-user, multimedia, technologies for the construction of social environments that really work on a human level. Her group's approach to virtual worlds blends sociology, design and technology with the goal of enhancing net-based relationships. "Today's net is a rich web of information, increasingly complemented by software that supports community and people-to-people relationships," says Stone. "We are spending more and more time on the net, conducting both business and social relationships. Our computer, previously primarily an 'information prosthetic,' is now, also, a 'prosthetic of being' -- it is our virtual self," she explains. Stone's aim is to provide tools that don't impose an online structure on users, but instead permit them to give individual expression to that virtual self as well as to create a sense of place and cultural context on the net. Stone's team is a product incubation group that blends research and development, creative and technical efforts. The first offerings from the virtual worlds group were multimedia chat services: V-Chat and Comic Chat. The group is now developing virtual worlds technologies that go beyond chat. Prior to joining Microsoft in December of 1993, Stone worked for Apple Computer as that company's key person in building the multimedia marketplace. She was instrumental in forging the first significant relationships between a technology firm, Apple, and the traditional creative media, such as book publishers. Well known in both the creative and technical communities, Stone is a frequent speaker at conferences and has been repeatedly quoted and profiled in the news media. In 1996, Upside magazine has named her one of the 100 leaders of the digital revolution. She is also featured in John Brockman's book, "The Digerati," which describes her as "a visionary both within Microsoft and to the industry at large."
Posted 7 Jan 1998