OK, so it's not a Metaplace screenshot - but this might be possible...
An announcement was made last week that introduced a change to the way we will live our lives. Metaplace is coming…
The site looks kinda hokey, but that’s ‘cos it’s aimed at its initial target market – cheesy gamers. Eventually though, it will affect each and every one of us, for Metaplace could be just the kick in the arse that Virtual Reality has been waiting for.
Those of you who have read the Otherland series by Tad Williams will already understand the possible future (albeit via fiction) of VR – if it realises its potential the impact on our lives will dwarf that of the ‘Net. In recent years however, it’s been hard to transpose the vision of Otherland into any realistic expectation of societal change. Having sniffed around the VR job market a few years back I became quickly disillusioned. Those companies that were investing time and money into it were bogged down in the mechanics of simulation – the biggest concern at the time was the sensation of sea-sickness that VR trialists felt, which engineers attributed to the refresh-rates of VR goggles. Having completed a thesis in Flow I was more interested in the psychology of VR, so it felt a little premature to get involved.
Metaplace seems to have taken it to the next level though.
The gist of Metaplace is that any web user will be able to create their own little virtual world – in 2d, 2.5d or 3d – that can then be linked to other virtual worlds. So imagine…instead of your Facebook page you have a virtual apartment that your friends can walk into (with their personalised avatar, of course). And instead of your Facebook ‘Wall’ you have a guestbook on the coffee table with messages left from friends. Instead of Facebook photo albums you have photo album slideshows playing on the wall… Instead of lists of music you like, the stereo is actually playing what you’re listening to. And from your ‘apartment’ are doors to a limitless amount of other worlds. Other friends will have their own apartments, brick ‘n mortar bookshops will have virtual bookstores where you click on a title off the shelf to purchase, and game developers will build boxing arenas where you can step into the ring with your virtual buddies. The possibilities are mindblowingly endless.
The clever thing that Metaplace has done is to tackle the problem of delivering VR from the user-level up. While engineers the world over have been racing to solve problems like the goggle refresh-rate thing for years, Metaplace has observed the success of user-generated content sites like Facebook, YouTube and Flickr and seen that scale breeds growth. By making the creation of these Virtual Worlds a lego-like process for punters they’ll quickly establish a massive user base and attract a legion of creative developers wanting to add more fantastic worlds of their own that we can all enjoy. If they execute it right Metaplace could in fact one day become a 3d, VR web.
Which would make text-based sites like Facebook – and possibly the entire internet – quite passé.