The Electric Sheep Company, a virtual worlds design agency, have announced WebFlock, a system by which white label virtual worlds can be created. The big news is that these 3D virtual worlds will accessed through the web browser and, uniquely, be built on Flash, which means that the vast majority of web users will be able to access WebFlock virtual worlds without the need to download a plugin. This is in contrast to rivals such as Google’s Lively, launched last week, which requires the installation of special software, as well as more established virtual worlds such as Second Life, which require a full-blown client to be installed.
This announcement is a significant step forward for virtual words in their quest to reach the mainstream. Users of worlds built on WebFlock will be able to casually access them, without any of the barriers to adoption inherent with other technologies. A company seeking better engagement with its users can simply embed this on their website with the expectation that a significant number of users will enter the 3D world – an expectation impossible with other, non-flash, technologies. A comparison can be drawn with YouTube; YouTube was successful because it brought online video to the masses using a technology which made it simple – it just happened to be Flash. Electric Sheep will certainly be hoping that WebFlock achieves the same.
There are two caveats, however. The first is that the technology does not come cheap; at ‘under $100,000’, it is certainly cheaper than the option of building out a large-scale, sophisticated presence in Second Life, but it will not be an option that most companies will consider yet. Nevertheless, I suspect that many will. My second concern is that there may be a reason that no-one to my knowledge has yet built a 3D world in Flash. Flash certainly isn’t designed to handle 3D rendering, and without seeing the technology in action it is difficult to assess the extent to which Electric Sheep have overcome that difficulty.
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