Through their features--such as profile photographs or the personal vita--online profiles on social-networking sites offer a perfect basis for social comparison processes. By looking at the profile photograph, the user gains an impression of a person's physical attractiveness, and the user's vita shows which career path the person is pursuing. Against the background of Festinger's Social Comparison Theory, the focus of this research is on the effects of online profiles on their recipients. Therefore, qualitative interviews (N = 12) and two online experiments were conducted in which virtual online profiles of either physically attractive or unattractive persons (N = 93) and profiles of users with either high or low occupational attainment (N = 103) were presented to the participants. Although qualitative interviews did not initially give reason to expect online profiles to constitute a basis for comparison processes, results of the experiments proved otherwise. The first study indicates that recipients have a more negative body image after looking at beautiful users than persons who were shown the less attractive profile pictures. Male participants of the second study, who were confronted with profiles of successful males, showed a higher perceived discrepancy between their current career status and an ideal vita than male participants who looked at profiles of less successful persons.

This study analyzes the influence of avatars on social presence, interpersonal trust, perceived communication quality, nonverbal behavior, and visual attention in Net-based collaborations using a comparative approach. A real-time communication window including a special avatar interface was integrated into a shared collaborative workspace. Communication modes under investigation were text chat, audio, audio-video, and avatar. Significant differences were found between text chat and all other communication modalities in perceived intimateness, co-presence, and emotionally-based trust. Microanalyses of nonverbal activity and visual attention point to similarities between video and avatar modes, both showing higher levels of exposure to the virtual other and visual attention, in particular in the initial phase of interaction as compared to text and audio.Technologies for computer-mediated communication (CMC) and collaboration are advancing rapidly. Shared workspaces and collaborative virtual environments allow for real-time information interchange and the synchronization of distributed working efforts over large distances. However, real-time access to information is only one determinant of efficient Net-based collaboration. Even more relevant in individual, societal, and economical respects could be the possibility to substitute face-to-face (FtF) meetings, which despite high costs are still the preferred interactional setting (Walther & Parks, 2002) when it comes to more complex communication tasks involving socioemotional aspects. Gates (1999) formulates the vision of global collaboration as follows.What do people do at work? They go to meetings. How do we deal with meetings? What is it about sitting face to face that we need to capture? We need software that makes it possible to hold a meeting with distributed

Abstract. This paper describes an application of the conversational agent Max in a real-world setting. The agent is employed as guide in a public computer museum, where he engages with visitors in natural face-to-face communication, provides them with information about the museum or the exhibition, and conducts natural small talk conversations. The design of the system is described with a focus on how the conversational behavior is achieved. Logfiles from interactions between Max and museum visitors were analyzed for the kinds of dialogue people are willing to have with Max. Results indicate that Max engages people in interactions where they are likely to use human-like communication strategies, suggesting the attribution of sociality to the agent.

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