Eventually, we'll all speak into wristwatch-mounted videophones at least once. Not because we need to, but because that's the way Dick Tracy did it, and certain goofy visions of the future refuse to die until we kill them ourselves. Ticketmaster's announcement of intent to offer 3-D seating previews and fly-bys online, inspired directly by the AT&T commercials of olde, is only the latest bout of retrofuturism made good. With any luck, its release will coincide with the arrival of that head-mounted Pentium you've got on order.
In today's world of industrialized scalping, one can only feel pity for gimmick-obsessives sailing around the digital auditoriums while the all-night campers steal the good seats. Even with an MMX chip, fly-by re-creations of lawn-seating perspective promise to be a drag. Ticketmaster might consider prioritizing seating desirability, assigning highest desirability to the front row and lowest to the entrance-side bleachers. Great, but not novel - considering that Ticketmaster phone operators already do exactly that.
It's hard not to wonder why Ticketmaster isn't planning now, in anticipation of the next logical step, to place virtual musicians on the virtual stage and sell the same seat to several thousand. But most musicians hardly need crude VRML kludges to make them appear blockheaded, and most fans have better things to do than pay extra for suspicions confirmed. At least live online re-creations of sporting events would let you kill the umpire.
Ultimately, attempts to mirror the architecture of the offline world are irrepressible only because they're so obvious. In the minds of many, the re-creation of actuality is the apotheosis of virtuality, if only because reality is always the most convenient impediment to imagination. So, just as people stop flocking to real malls, the first thought of the average digital entrepreneur is replica cybermalls. And as voters fail to click at the ballot box, we get political ad banners. PetWorld starts selling Tamagotchis. Before too long, we'll be expected to tour apartments on the Web. It may or may not be a nice place to visit, but would you really want to live there? You can't. And that's a blessing you can count on.
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
