Virtual Worlds as Information Spaces: Supporting Semantic and Social Navigation in a shared 3D Environment

Virtual worlds are a popular medium for communication and collaboration in 3D and they are being used as shared information spaces in various application areas. However, compared to traditional hypermedia and web-based information systems they offer little support for semantic and social navigation. In this paper, a framework for enhancing virtual worlds with metaphors that support improved semantic and social browsing in the 3D environment is proposed, and an integrated architecture for their interface with external information sources through the employment of Linked Data is presented. In order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a prototype system has been implemented and accordingly evaluated.