Standards we can use
In the discussions around standards for virtual world, the notion of “portable avatars” seems to be pretty popular. At the fall virtual worlds conference, Linden Lab and IBM announced that they were partnering to define standards around Universal Avatars, web integration, security and stability. A universal avatar standard would allow users to move their avatar from one world to the other, while maintaining appearance, “digital assets”, and identity. Given that the problem of identity and managing multiple accounts has not been solved for regular web sites (ok, it may have been solved, but there is no widespread adoption yet), I’m curious to see how successful the effort will be in the virtual world space.
It may be that the value of universal, portable avatars is not big enough to drive the quick adoption of a particular solution. However, all virtual worlds need content, and Second Life has shown that the easiest way to get content is to let the users create it. So, virtual world creators either have to make it really easy for the users to create content in their environment (like the built-in tools in the SL client), or enable easy import of content created elsewhere. Already, platforms like Multiverse and Scenecaster are starting to enable integration with Google’s Sketchup and 3D Warehouse, and import of COLLADA seems to crop up more and more.
However, 3D objects are not that interesting on their own — they need to do something. So, the next step may be figuring out how to enable the import of complete virtual world applications. It seems unlikely that other virtual worlds would enable the running of programs written in the Linden Scripting Language (LSL), but once Linden Lab completes the transition to Mono, maybe other virtual world platforms will start to see the value of an integrated Mono runtime also?
Another possibility would be some standard 3D interaction libraries built around the scripting language Lua. Like COLLADA, Lua seems to show up in several different new (and old) virtual worlds. Maybe we will see the development of a lua common library for interactions in 3D environments, making it easier for programs to work in multiple different platforms.
Being able to write an application for one virtual world, and have it run anywhere (hey, “Write once, run anywhere” — that’s catchy!) would be pretty nifty, and is the flip-side of the Universal avatar: If I can use my favorite application in any virtual world, then maybe I don’t need to move between platforms so much.
I see you linked to openid.net. The problem with openid is that anyone can write a provider and there is no centralized whitelist/blacklist, so there’s no way to guard against rogue providers. So, it is debatable that openid “solves” anything. Also, there is Gravatar.com, which is a free, central database of email addresses and 2D avatars.
Jonas,
I agree with Gary and have the same concern with openid. There needs to be some selection/moderating process in place to weed out less than competent suppliers. I’m not familar with gravatar but will check it out.
I’m sure OpenId solves *something* (or at least there are people who believe it does), in the same way that Gravatar solves something. The question is whether the lack of adoption is because of technical issues, or whether there is not sufficient value to a solution.