[...] to 2.5 finally. Sheesh. I see I now have this nifty tagging feature. I need to figure out a [...] Trevor Smith predicts the VW future Posted by Raph’s Website on 8 April 2008, 3:32 pm Trevor F. Smith is, of course, the prime mover [...]

Web coders don’t necessarily take beautiful photographs, but they do make sites like Flickr.

In that case, those web coders are arguably not cheap web coders.

Web coders don’t necessarily take beautiful photographs, but they do make sites like Flickr. I definitely agree with Raph that the big open questions for pop 3D are less about display and delivery and more about creation.

That depends on what you consider a virtual world. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn?

Nope. I’ve posted my definition many times, and a spatial simulation is part of it.

That doesn’t mean that those services couldn’t edge over the line quite easily, of course.

What is the definition of a virtual world? Do you have to be able to walk around in it? Like with an avatar? Second Life is without doubt a virtual world in this context.

I have one definition here: http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/book/3c.shtml

There was also a whole post about it here http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/03/31/are-muds-and-mmorpgs-the-same-thing/

To be clear, the reasons why I consider a browser to currently be a poor VW client have mostly to do with some technical choices regarding asynchronicity, means of caching, etc.

Of course, one could also start to debate whether Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn could be defined as Virtual Worlds in the first place…

Which brings me to a question..
What is the definition of a virtual world? Do you have to be able to walk around in it? Like with an avatar? Second Life is without doubt a virtual world in this context.

Or can you define Facebook and then also the rest of the internet as a virtual world?

I would think the answer would be both.
Graphical virtual worlds typically need an extra client besides the browser to enter it(Metaverse etc.), or a client completely separate of the browser(Second Life etc.).
But that may change in the future.. Who knows? Maybe browsers will adapt in the future, an that way we will have one portal to the Virtual World which is the internet, instead of several different portals like we have today.
*shrugs*

But it’s a pretty poor client for virtual worlds.

That depends on what you consider a virtual world. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn?

The browser is a client…

http://www.news.com/8301-13772_3-9910962-52.html?tag=bl

See the screen shot of the 2005 IRC back channel. wayBack blast!

It seems that unlike other technologies that burst as the next big thing, 3D did that in the 90s. Since then, 3D, being a technically and artististically challenging artform, is a creeper. It’s been on the web since the early 90s in various forms. From the 2Dvs2.5Dvs3D battles, vector vs raster, curly vs pointy, static vs moving worlds, and all the other battles, Web 3D is an industry for the committed or soon to be committed.

I think one day we all look up and it will just be there in lots of different forms and everyone will yawn and go back to work. We’re close to that now. What we have learned is that it is a no-size-fits-all-comfortably medium.