Dear all: First I’d like to clarify that my suggestion of the “virtual conference” is meant only to bring in some new ideas for more participatory Aoir conferences; it is not a complaint at all. In fact I’m very grateful for all the things provided by Aoir and specifically the contributions made by people on this list. Aoir is one of the few academic groups that I participate and respect. As for my idea of something online simultaneously with a “real conference,” it is inspired by several conferences I attended in China and in this part of the world, where a seminar could be broadcasted online (not necessarily to be visual images, it could be text or sound) and received text-based response from audience. In the first annual conference of China’s Computer-mediated Communication Association last May in Najing, some seminars were broadcast through sina.com simultaneously to the national audience. As for costs, to attend a 3-day international conference (in the US or Europe) would normally cost me about HK16,000 (US$2,000) per trip (including registration fee, airfare, accommodation, etc), plus the time factor, over 40 hours on airplane, in airports and other vehicles in a return trip. I would rather pay half that money to some virtual conference technicians so that I can participate in a conference without traveling. Nowadays, we also have to take into consideration the threat of international terrorism. It is definitely no point for anyone to risk her/his life to go to some places which are always under terrorist attack alert just to attend some academic conferences. For who should do it? I definitely don’t suggest that we ourselves do it all the way as such work requires technical expertise and equipment. A couple of suggestions: 1. The most feasible way is to contract it out to a special virtual conference company and charge it to those who want to attend as virtual audience; 2. Whoever wants to organize a virtual seminar (virtual panel), be responsible for it themselves. Of course, virtual volunteers may be needed in the process. I am very interested in joining a team to exploring the potentials of a virtual conference. WM