Virtual malls for web commerce: Observations and case study

In the real world there seem to be essential differences between shops, tourist offices, city halls, theatres and museums. However, when we try to design virtual environments allowing services, transactions, explorations and communication, are these environments really that different? Doesn't the "virtual" in virtual environments allow us to introduce possibilities for visitors that extend those that are available in each of the mentioned physical environments and that can be become common for each of them? In this paper we survey our research on these issues and our attempt to integrate this research in a virtual environment devoted to the presentation and exploration of theatre information. We try to make clear that the topics we have to deal with do not differ from those that deal with access to commercial environments, museum and educational environments and other service and transaction environments.