He is not seeing real people, of course. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to the specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The people are pieces of software called avatars."

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 35.

Avatars are an individuals visual embodiment in Cyberspace. They provide an all important visual presence in the Virtual City. They are the citizens, the occupants, the commuters in the digital realm.

Depending on the browser software utilised Avatars can have a range of social gestures, increasing the level of reality and enhancing social interaction within virtual space. The ability to turn around and look a fellow avatar, or avizen as they are commonly known in virtual communities, in the eye while holding a conversation greatly enhances the level of social interaction. Aprime example is the use of gestures in Avatar in Alphaworld. Alphaworld avatars are capable of basic gestures such as ‘wave’ and jump and gestures to indicate basic emotions such as ‘happy’ or ‘angry’. Pictured right is an example scene of an social interaction between avatars in Alphaworld, the avatars are able to engage in real-time ‘face to face’ conversation as words typed appear above the avatars body in a manner remenistant to a speech bubble. Current technological and bandwidth restrictions limit social interaction to speech bubbles and basic gestures but as bandwidth restriction decrease as technological advances are made it will be possible allow more complex and ideally more realistic levels of interaction. Using video conferencing techniques such as ‘Ceeyou CeeMe’ and projecting the real-time view of a users face onto an avatars face will enable complex facial gestures and real-time speech based conversation into virtual domains.

Avatars and the corresponding social interaction are of prime importance in the population of virtual cities.