From buddyspace to CitiTag

In this paper we discuss the conceptual framework and principles that guide our work in the design of large-scale informal environments for collaborative work, learning and play, aiming to foster social bonds and to provide an exciting testbed for emergent social behaviours. We present three different applications we have developed: Buddyspace, an Instant Messaging environment for community building, BumperCars, an online presence-based multiplayer game and CitiTag, an experimental wireless mixed reality game.