I really want the 3D web to work. My dream, and I suspect I’m hardly alone, is for the entire web to be browsable as though it was all Second Life. In a recent post I wrote:
Eventually, the many virtual environments out there (in there) will begin to connect and coalesce. Like the door at the back of the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, there will soon be portals from and to Second Life and Google and, crucially into which the standard text-based experience of will be embedded.
‘An example of how this could work is given by Australian company, ‘ExitReality’. Of the virtual environments so far established, theirs has most fully grasped the concept of integrating the 3D web with the 2D web. The aim is to make virtual environments like Second Life integrate seamlessly with text-based social web environments such as Facebook. In stitching up the web in this way the potential of both the book metaphor and the world metaphor is greatly enhanced. The 2D web becomes attractive at last; the 3D web finally becomes useful.’
So I was excited when Exit Reality finally went live. I tried it. It looked a bit like Second Life. I turned my blog into a lage 3D hall and walked around it a bit. Cool. Well it would have been if it hadn’t been so slow to render and if it hadn’t crashed my browser twice.
If that hasn’t put you off, you can try it here.
I don’t mean it to put you off. I really want the 3D web to work. I really want Exit Reality to work, and I’m sure it will, because it’s just too good an idea to fail.
But I’m still dreaming.
Four Cultures 