Web3D - The Next Major Internet Wave?

The World Wide Web has become an ingrained part of the way we work. No one ponders, these days, the fact that the Web links a vast system of documents, data, social networks, and applications running on servers all around the world. But in 1990, the Web that we take for granted today seemed unbelievable and unachievable. Again, a similar leapfrog jump in the Internet's capabilities will culminate during the next five to seven years when a 3-D, interactive, immersive Web emerges to make the Information Workplace — digital work environments that are seamless, contextual, visual, individualized, multimodal, social, and quick to create and modify — even more of a reality.

Investors are already pumping tons of money into virtual worlds, immersive workspaces, and immersive learning simulations — some targeted at business and some at consumers. According to Virtual Worlds Management, a media company tracking the virtual worlds industry, venture capital, technology, and media firms have invested nearly $1.5 billion in virtual world companies in just five quarters from Q4 2006 through Q4 2007. This is one of many indicators that we are in the very early stages of Web3D, which we define as:

The next major wave in the Internet's evolution. Web3D is a system of linked interactive 3-D and 2-D environments that will include everything from use-specific, private applications like immersive learning simulations to virtual worlds open to anyone who wants to join — and people will move among these in a seamless, natural way. Web3D will deliver an interactive, immersive experience that increases motivation and engagement compared with the static, text-oriented or even somewhat interactive graphical interfaces of today's Web. People will be represented visually by avatars that can move in space and communicate with others via voice and text, gestures, user-directed motion, animation sequences, and social networking tools. Web3D will integrate with Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 tools and technologies, as well as business software applications.

Source: https://www.forrester.com/Research/PDF/0,5110,45257,00.pdf