THE MIRROR - REFLECTIONS ON INHABITED TV

Inhabited TV is a vision of future television services in which multiu ser virtual environments deliver unprecedented levels of audience part icipation. Social chat and interaction are mixed with professional con tent and programming to create on-line communities. The Mirror was a g round-breaking collaborative experiment in inhabited TV, created by BT , Sony, Illuminations and the BBC. Six on-line worlds were available t o over 2000 viewers of the BBC2 series 'The Net' in January and Februa ry 1997, and this article provides an overview of the project.