How Mobile Devices Popped the Virtual World Bubble

[Greg Bernhardt]

This is was just a quick post to share a link to an very insightful editorial on the rise and fall of the 3D Web and the virtual revolution. Although it focuses more on virtual worlds as a component of the videogame industry, it definitely captures the way they burst onto the scene as a contender for the “next big thing” only to be overshadowed by services that reduced their appeal to the barest possible component, social interaction.

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[mgb_phys]

Not convinced that virtual worlds won't make it - but on smartphones.
People txt, not because that's the best way of communicating but because it's the lowest common denominator - everybody has text.
When all the kids have smartphones with GPS/cameras/3G/motion sensors then it's not clear that they won't want a richer environment, and the phones/pads now have the CPU+graphics+bandwidth to allow it.

The main problem is that the environment has to add something. Currently all the virtual worlds - except for the games - made things harder. You had to walk into the virtual post office to send an email in one system.