I was thinking about the difference between synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communication, and how synchronous communication has been successfully ported to fleshed-out, CGI-heavy "virtual worlds" like Second Life and IMVU (hence the oft-used descriptor "glorified chatroom" in regards to such virtual worlds).
Apparently, because of the enduring popularity and expanding capability of the World Wide Web, it isn’t likely that we’ll see a big move to a "3D Web" anytime soon, at least not in the way that we’ve seen such massive movements from text-driven mediums such as MU*s and (IRC, Yahoo, MSN, AIM) chat rooms to the modern-day virtual worlds. However, if synchronous text and voice chat have become mainstays of most active or ongoing MMOGs such as SL and WoW, then why is it that asynchronous communication – that which relies upon "boards" to contain persistent messages – has not been successfully reimagined in a 3D, CGI-heavy context? And what would a 3D Web look like?
I would think that the first measure to accomplish in the fleshout (or avatarization?) of asynchronous communication would be to flesh out the "pages" which are used to contain submitted information. Pages are text-centric documents, are presented as flat, 2D objects onto which information is appended, are encoded with a wide variety of strategically-placed visual cues (or "GUI elements") which allow for the web browser to perform just as wide of a variety of actions, and are accessed through devices which are best designed to interact with flat, 2D objects, i.e., keyboards and computer mice.
So a few ideas spring to mind:
- Replace hyperlinked documents with hyperlinked speech bubbles/clouds
- Augment text with 3D-native visual communication systems which drive any one person’s thoughts directly to the user without losing anything in translation or clarification.
- Flesh the bubbles out into a 3D visualization
- Design a variety of stationary or dynamic GUI elements which provide for smooth navigation between 3D speech bubbles.
- Promote 3D-centric navigatory input devices
I think that Ted Nelson, the man behind the Xanadu project (also called "the longest running vaporware story in the history of the computer industry" by Wired magazine in 1996), might be right in his contention that Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s implementation of the WWW was a well-intentioned, much-too-document-centric oversimplification of his own ideas on hypertext. So perhaps a re-visualization of how we interact with asynchronous communication tools could lead to a translation of what we’ve placed into the 2D Web into a 3D structure that is much more fleshed-out and tangible.
I will think more about this idea for a 3D Web in the future.
