Archive for July 22nd, 2008
Browser based virtual worlds: "Webflock"
“Sibley Verbeck is moving past Second Life. The CEO of the Electric Sheep Company has made a lot of money creating virtual islands in Second Life for big brands such as CBS, Showtime, and Intel. But now he is ready to bring those virtual worlds to the Web in regular browsers. Today, he is releasing WebFlock, a Flash-based 3-D virtual world application he is offering as a hosted software service.”
Read Erick Schonfeld’s article, “More Browser-Based Virtual Worlds: The Electric Sheep Company Releases WebFlock,” on the Washington Post.
Virtual worlds and cloud computing make you think about ubiquity. The end game is about enabling communication and social interactions, enhancing usability by delivering immersive user friendly interfaces. This also means taking down some of the physical limitations that hinder global collaboration and networking in real life. A browser based virtual world is the right step in the right direction: no client software download and installation required, any user can log on from any computing device capable of handling an Internet browser with Adobe’s Flash plug-in, a feature which has become commonplace.
There are three trends worth considering. The first one is about initiatives making different virtual worlds interoperable so you can take your identity and avatar wherever you like. The second one is about branded and mission specific walled gardens, which might deliver a higher level of admin and management control as well as performance. The third trend is about delivering a communications mash-up, enabling users to talk and check video and avatar mail, twitter, podcast, IM, email, share content, schedule activities, etc. without having to switch between unrelated applications. Web based virtual worlds get us closer to realizing the full potential of these trends.
Related posts:
- To be or not to be… virtual?
- New branded and mission specific virtual worlds
- Make your own virtual world with OLIVE
- 5D: The future of immersive design
- Intellectual property in virtual worlds
- Corporate presence in Second Life
| J. de Francisco |  |
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| Chicago, IL 22 July 08 |  |
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