One of the sessions at Virtual Worlds 2008 was entitled, "Why Virtual Worlds Are The New Saturday Morning TV". Well, it is Saturday morning. I am home after recuperating from the show and Fiona, my six-year-old daughter, is watching Growing Up Creepy on Discovery Kids. Virtual worlds haven’t completely overtaken Saturday morning comics form my little digital native in generation avatar, but they are close. For while she can’t read well enough to do quests in Runescape or chat with other players, her total level there is already 249, with special strengths in woodcutting, firemaking, fishing, and cooking.

As I sit with her in Runescape from time to time, I use it as an opportunity to work on her reading. As messages appear on the screen we work on sounding out the words. The text seems much more compelling than stories about Tom, Dick or Jane.

She is very excited about the Habbo pillow that I brought home from the show, but she knows that it belongs to her, and her sisters, and I expect there may be battles over it.

When I explained the show, she wasn’t sure what I meant by Virtual Worlds, but she sure knew about Runescape, Neopets, Webkins, and many other virtual destinations. She offered the following commentary, which fits pretty nicely with what the folks at VW2008 were talking about:

If you get a chance to talk to them again, tell them that what kids really like is fun games. Like in Webkins, they’ve got a whole big arcade in their world, and there’s all kinds of different games, like the cooking game.

I remember it because it is like a competition and the judge will test it and see who wins. It’s really fun.

You can create a room. In Webkins you can create your own room, a whole house. You can create a bathroom. Isn’t that cool?

You have to make food for Neopets for dinner and lunch, like our world. It’s really cool. I think you can even make them have a shower or bath.

I also think you can, like, hmm, I don’t know how to say this, you earn money from those games I told you about. You have to buy stuff with it. I’m not sure, but I think you can buy clothes for the Neopets.

I really think you might be able to put some nice clothes and nice stuff for your Neopets, like in their whole room, a whole house.

That’s really all. That’s a lot, isn’t it. Oh, and one more thing, thanks for having time with me.

I’ve often felt that it is about time for Fiona to start her own blog. She can provide great political commentary, and she is now expanding into talking about marketing of emerging technology. Look out, world, at what happens when these generation avatar, digital natives start entering the workforce.