Cybertheatre thoughts

My main question in doing performances using the internet is what will make them different from simply using pre-recorded images? But I'm getting ahead of myself a little here. First off, there are a few types of cybertheatre:

1. Entirely online--actors, audience, everything. The main form of this, as I see it, is theatre in a massively multiplayer game, like World of Warcraft or Second Life. Second Life keeps crashing my computer, so I'm having second thoughts about it (no pun intended). It's advantage is that it's free and easy to create an account, as well as being built for social interaction rather than combat and achievement. The other form this type of theatre might take is using facebook or youtube. A few options here: a dialogue between people's walls on facebook (would work on a blog as well, I suppose), or video responses on youtube. Neither are exactly in realtime, and the facebook one is text, but if we're going to be out of the box let's get out of the box. However, if we're getting away from images and people I think it crosses some artistic boundry, even if it's live. The main issue with anything video online I think is that it becomes video. Camchats might be one way around this, a group of actors broadcasting to an audience in their homes. You could even set it up so people paid to get in...dunno how you would set it up, though, and there might be some stigma as I've only seen that type of thing on weird quasi-porn dating sites and the like.

2. Online/offline mix--Sort of like the last thing I mentioned, where actors would meet in real life but the audience would just log in. A potential buy for todays youtube obsessed, non-theatre-going audiences? But really I'm thinking about the kind of thing I'd want to do as a show here, where you have a live audience, with live and online actors onstage, with the online actors coming in via skype/ichat on video screens. This is where the question, "what's the advantage of having it live, rather than canned?" comes in, as a canned performance would be much easier and not have any tech/timezone/location issues. I think the important thing here is the fourth wall. It's something rigidly in place in cinema, and playing with it would seriously screw up people's preconceived notions of what is allowed to appear on a screen. Having an onscreen actor comment on a member of the audience's hair or clothing, or maybe asking for a suggestion from the audience, as in an improv show. Some sort of real interaction. Interaction with the actors onstage is equally important. The idea of a sex scene just popped into my head, but my original thought was a phone call from an actor onstage to one on the screen. The actors are actually talking to each other over and hearing each other over the phone, but the audience hears what they say straight from their lips. Whispering could be effective here, something both actors hear but the audience does not. It also ties into the tech atmosphere an internet show would invariably have. That leads to my next question: what play, what themes, are appropriate for this kind of performance? You don't want to be too self-referential, but at the same time there needs to be a reason for the internet to be used. The idea of distance and connection I think is definitely one to get, as there is a real difference between in-person connection and connection over skype. Though I'm still not sure what that is, really. Any ideas?