Told you so! For a while I had the impression that I was among the last few of those who kept on dreaming about this stuff. Now Forrester claims that "During The Next Five To Seven Years, Web3D Will Evolve Quickly". Well, we have been told by James Wagner Au before why virtual worlds like Secondlife matter for businesses and we have heard the head of the Internet Paul Twomey say that the arrival of the 3D web is not a question about if but about when it will arrive.

Forrester confirms this in their latest report and also delivers us a definition of what the 3D web is about:

The next major wave in the Internet’s evolution

• System of linked interactive 3-D and 2-D environments
• People will be able to move among these environments in a seamless, natural way.
• Will deliver an interactive, immersive experience
• People will be represented visually by avatars that can move in space and communicate with others.
• Will integrate with Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 tools and technologies as well as business software apps

Exciting things lie ahead. As we sort out technological hurdles, see how SecondLife and IBM team up, Google launching it's own 3D show what can we expect of the future? A first step is interoperability and connectivity to our social environments on the web. Great and still valid, some articles from Technology Review from one year ago (Second Earth, edition of July/August 2007). I more than agree that we will finally get to a point where technological hurdles are overcome and a rich, high-def, seamlessly integrated web experience will guide not only the relationship between businesses and their customers (read here but the relationship between people and information in general. Just imagine browsing through 3D tag clouds - an additional third dimension can be added and helps us work with information in much more sophisticated ways than currently done. Consider the examples from Forresters Presentation on Web3D:

Above: The Michelin Group enterprise architecture island in Second Life lets enterprise architects build road maps

Above: by Gus Rosania, PhD; University of Michigan College of Pharmacy

Above: EOLUS One island in Second Life demonstrate how information can be aggregated in 3D cockpits

Above: "Serious Games" can be used to train medical students - with great results so far

Now imagine things like industry landscapes, 3D financial analysis where cash flow can actually be viewed as a flows and not some numbers in a table, ...

My big hope and dream, as explained numerous times here is that we connect 3D spheres with our existing data bases and in particular that we arrive at semantifying 3D knowledge environments (which then to me becomes Web3.D - with a dot). Once we are able to switch views on the meaning transported through information, that's when Web3.D will start to reveal its full potential. Imagine people building knowledge repositories in 3D and these repositories can be visited by others. And imagine that, like today we can switch the way things look on a website by switching a CSS file, we can switch the way things look in 3D as well.

Why is this so unbelievable? Simply because we will be able to switch styles of looking at knowledge which will significantly boost our ability to understand each other! Like you can switch a style sheet that defines the output of HTML and instantly get a new design of a website you will be able to switch 3D views. In addition, it is quite clear that any 3D object can be assigned meaning in an onthological sense! This enrichment with semantics can be used to allow people view things in their natural way.

Let me illustrate this with an example: Joe and Jane make mindmaps in order to learn new things. Every time Joe learns about a very important concept he puts a big yellow exclamation mark next to the corresponding branch. Jane, in contrast, likes to highlight the in her eyes relevant concepts by marking the branch with a big red circle. Suppose Jane misses a day in class and could not get a mindmap of a really important session. Joe offered her to copy his mindmaps of the session. Jane gets along with joes mindmaps but she finds them a bit confusing and will re-write them to suit her style. She has gotten used to working with her very own semantic enrichments. While she can read Joes mindmaps and understands them (she makes the connection that a big yellow exclamation mark next to branches corresponds to her red circles around the branches) she is not used to a different kind of semantic enrichment.

Web3D will allow us to semantically annotate and/or otherwise work with information to generate meaning. In this process, 3D environments support the learning processes and may in fact boost these. A next step is then to create personal semantic enrichment styles in order to more quickly digest or otherwise productively work with information. So the step to Web3.D would be to create a dictionary to translate semantic enrichments made by Joe to Jane and of course between experts of all kind. Not only will this boost our ability to learn but it will also speed things up: Jane does not have to copy the full mindmap but instead just uses the dictionary to view things in her natural way of making meaning.

Powerful stuff, exciting times to be around!

Here is more from Forrester (who of course do not start dreaming like I do but keep there feet on more solid ground):

The Internet is on the cusp of its next major evolution: Web3D. Within five to seven years, Web3D will deliver an interactive, immersive experience much richer than the static, text-oriented or even interactive graphical interfaces of today's Web. In the new world of work that Web3D will enable, people will be represented visually by avatars that can move in space, communicate with others, and interact with objects and information — making the digital world seem more like the real world. Yet Web3D won't leave the old world behind; it will integrate with the Web technologies we use today as well as existing and not yet invented business applications. Workers will use Web3D to teach and learn, innovate collaboratively, communicate and network, interact with and present information, and manage real-world systems.

Also, do not forget to view their slides and provide feedback to this post at any time via comments, mail or contact form.