Epilogue THIRD LIFE Eddie trotted down Regent Street, on his way to Piccadilly Circus. There was to be a Flasher gathering in 3space, so a number of people were there stumbling along with their phones extended at arms’ length, just like Eddie, viewing the street through their virtual peep- holes. It was a little dangerous but very engaging. He barely avoided being hit by a taxi in realspace. Eddie had joined the Flashers recently and needed to gain points by spotting a few 3Life celebrities. He was in the process of buying some property in LeeLoo, the prominant virtual hacker estate in 3space, but for that he needed plenty of points that could be converted into 3gold. Spotting celebrities was one way to get there, as the 3Days magazine had put up a paparazzi hunt for those rare 3Life stardom, offering 3points as rewards. For instance, spotting Linus Torvalds there could be worth of 20 terabytes of server space in the prestigious Milla Street. He stopped in front of Tower Records to observe the fl ow of people, both real and virtual, there on the square. It was still a little scary to see all those avatars walk freely in the middle of the traffi c, going through real people, cars, buses, but not buildings. There were a number of Flashers there, all wearing animal avatars to celebrate their “Circus” gathering. There were two zebras, a bulky rhino, some quite cleverly modelled fl uffy birds (who coded that hair algorithm?), and several veloceraptors with smoothed motion. Eddie was a rasta lion (in Zion, get it). He did not spot anyone he knew, but then again, he was new to the community. Maybe check the local messages later, now it was time to spot 3Lifers. There was a lot of realnoise on the realstreets, and 3noise on the walls. The Coca Cola and Sanyo neon displays (the real ones) were masked with remixed Flasher 3videos. One showed a sexy dancer with a see-through dress that revealed that she was in fact a Honda robot. Did Flashers receive funding from Jap corpora- tions? Weird. Some 3lifer had released a Happy Bomb in the air, so anywhere Eddie pointed his phone, the display was half masked with smiley 3faces. What a noise. Eddie turned off the effects to be able to view avatars better. Eddie’s cellphone beeped to signal someone was nearby in realspace. Oops . . . Angie, there in the tube station. Not now. He did not want to meet her, not after the break-up. She was gone from his fi les. Though not from his heart. Would never be. Personal Content Experience: Managing Digital Life in the Mobile Age J. Lehikoinen, A. Aaltonen, P. Huuskonen and I. Salminen © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd