Approx 31 Blogging about moble + SL, Croquet

Willi's got a bit in his blog about some prototypes we're working on. This one is meant to show on-scene disaster workers walking around assessing damage with gps and camera equipped mobile devices.

I messed with Croquet a bit yesterday. just out of interest, and also a bit because I was miffed at Second Life for deciding to bring the grid down yesterday. Such is life on the front end of the hype curve!

Initial impressions...

Second Life is more like the web, it has the chaotic, random feel that comes from random exploration, searching, and inputs from your social/professional network. Croquet has more of a self-contained, peer-to-peer feel. Right now I see Croquet as a targeted application development platform. I also see Croquet as lending itself to more abstract presentation. I really love the metaphor in Croquet of jumping through portals to navigate to new worlds! I'm quite sure I've only scratched the surface on Croquet, but it seems less collaborative, and more about cool new metaphors for information. In other words, I don't feel as much immersion, or presence of myself or others in the Croquet demos, but I do see more of a free-flowing, abstract experience.

That's not a knock, I see different horses for different courses. I'm even more of a Croquet noob than a Second Life noob, so take everything with a grain of salt. I've got to dive into Blender and Squeak, I think, before I really have a good grounding on the potential of Croquet.

Which 3D Virtual World

I predict the virtual 'wars' to come will be like the browser wars. Walled gardens will whither under the same pressures that browsers felt. That's my (somewhat safe and obvious) prediction.

Some interesting discussion today on the merits of SecondLife versus Croquet. Certainly, it's a big space, and each may fill a different niche. I'd say at this point there is no safe money, so look at all the options.

Here's an interesting bit from Slashdot that friend sent me..

"Having already taken the timid steps of open-sourcing the code for its client software, Linden Lab has confirmed that they'll be going the whole way, and will soon be opening up the server code for Second Life. This furthers Second Life's ambitions to be a fully distributed 3D network — built on interoperability and not owned by one company — a bit like the Internet itself. ZDNet's The Social Web asks: 'who will be the first to offer Second Life hosting or use the server code for their own internal purposes? IBM would be an obvious candidate, perhaps offering corporate Second Life services. And for the rest of us? GoogleLife, free virtual land — ad supported of course. It's certainly a possibility.'"