The Portal is the Avatar

While contemplating how people will interact with Croquet as it becomes ubiquitous, it occurred to me that they would represent themselves in the Croquet worlds less and less by visual puppet or doll type avatars. In their place would be something that would visually represent themselves more accurately... the worlds that the people created themselves.

The Spherical Portal would be suited to the purpose. By walking around someone’s portal-avatar you see various aspects of their world that they’ve put up closest to the front. Your avatar would be a continual invitation to join you in your world.

There would also be a non-verbal, non-auditory representation of your avatar that follows it wherever it goes ... more like a radio broadcast of content, only for the computers and rules of the computers of the surrounding avatars to hear. Just like one's blog is a broadcast of one's interests & purpose... your avatar would broadcast your intended data scent. Something like what Bluetooth friendfinder gadgets do in the physical world, and there may be a crossover of the two, blurring the boundaries between the virtual and the real.