Pelican Crossing Blog

To quote from my last blog post: “I believe that there is an impending collision between virtual worlds and social networks…”

Gosh I hate it when I’m right, especially when it’s Google that helps me to prove my point. There are a number of people out there who just don’t get 3D and virtual worlds. Look at some of the responses to the Vivaty announcement and the Linden & IBM announcement.

Today the biggest gorilla in the world just entered the room. Google has entered virtual worlds with a new product called Lively. It can be integrated with Facebook, MySpace, Web pages of course and other Social Networks that support Open Social.

To early to say to much about this, still downloading their plugin (9Mb which is the same size as Blink 3D/inDuality). But looking at the images of existing virtual worlds and also the fact that you can not create your own content yet, I’m not that impressed. Google has been working on this for 3 years. Heavens, they hired the wrong people!

So what does this mean to us and the virtual worlds industry as a whole. Well the virtual worlds space has now been validated with a huge stamp. People will now start taking virtual worlds far more seriously. There are bound to be some companies taken by surprise at the announcement, what’s Yahoo, and AIM’s response. Well AIM is close to Vivaty, I’m not sure who Yahoo is close with in this space. Adobe is likely to still push Flash.

It does mean that people are going to be taking a long hard look at Blink 3D, inDuality and what a very small unfunded company like Pelican Crossing can do. So watch this space, this is were it gets interesting!

Wow, what a week, we released Blink 3D 2.0 on June 27^th. It should have been June 26^th but I forgot that there was a days lead time with PRWeb, so we slipped by a day. Actually I was not that upset, the extra time gave me a chance to nail down a few last minute things. I must say the response has been tremendous, I have been snowed under with requests for information and interviews, etc. Web site traffic is at an all time high and there are still a number of places that have not yet mentioned the release that typically send us a lot of traffic. This week has been so busy, this is the first time I have had to sit down and blog about my own release.

I have lost count of how many times over the years I have launched a product. However, still, even after all these years and with lots of practice, it does not get any easier or less stressful. Sure now we don’t have to create master disks and wait for them to be duped. Now when it’s ready it can be on the Web site and ready to download in hours. But I think this is not always a good thing, the time between RTM (Release to Manufacturing) and FCS (First Customer Ship) was a time to get all the other little things sorted.

Still it’s done now, the press release went out and within 2 days, the number of full pages reads was greater than the total number of full pages reads for the previous Blink 3D 1.1 release. This does not mean that Blink 3D is white hot, but I think it does indicate that virtual worlds are certainly hot. For some people Blink 3D is a bit of a disappointment, they don’t get that it is a development platform and is not in it’s self a virtual world. They don’t realize that with Blink 3D you can create the most amazing virtual worlds of your own. Most people right now are more interested in visiting virtual worlds that have already been created. The analogy here is, would you rather watch a block buster movie or start work on a script and camera blocking for your own film. Blink 3D is in the business of letting you create your own film (virtual world) from scratch, what ever genera you want, film noir, horror, adventure, comedy, etc.

Over time people will start to realize that some of the best virtual worlds out there are not the big monolithic ones where the look and feel is at worst, completely sanitized or at best, looks like every one is using the same crayons. Some of the best films and games are made by indies (independents), and the same applies to virtual worlds. When these separate virtual worlds are linked together, the user is then free to explorer the massive, and rich metaverse.

It would be remiss of me, if I did not take time here, to point to the hard work that has been done by all the beta testers. They have tirelessly downloaded builds, kicked the tires, reported the bugs, and rightly brow beaten me when they felt I was fobbing them off. With out the beta testers, Blink 3D would not be the great product it is today. So a very big thank you to all the beta testers, for a long and hard job well done. Also a big thank you to the people who allowed my to show there work in the Gallery and Customer Showcase, both of which look pretty impressive, even if I say so myself.

Next we start work on the inDuality platform, this is something I have been planning and thinking about for at least 2 years. Sure the original idea has morphed slightly but not much. I’m looking forward to finally being able to make a start on this. For those of you worrying about Blink 3D, don’t, it is a key component of the next phase. More news on inDuality and what its all about as we start to roll things out. In the meantime, if you want to get an idea of what the vision is, have a read of the Metaverse 2.0 white paper. I have received so much positive feedback on it, I’m so pleased I finally put my thoughts down on paper. But as someone pointed out to me recently, I need to do a Metaverse 2.1 version of the white paper, things are moving forward, social networks were only just starting when I wrote it over a year ago. I believe that there is an impending collision between virtual worlds and social networks and the inDuality Platform is going to be there to help make it happen.

To blog, or not to blog: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to keep ones mouth shut and suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take up the keyboard, against a sea of troubles and mis-information.

My apologies to Mr. Shakespeare, his words, or should I say my updated version of them, seem to capture my thoughts of late. Is it not strange, how when one starts to write how literary one feels, maybe this explains the invocation of the Bards words.

For the last few years I have stood on the side lines and watched people spout and pontificate about virtual worlds. Some of it without doubt well written and thought provoking, some of it however, falls into the category of complete and utter bull.

When I started in the commercial software business you could count the major software products on one hand. Yes, I know, that was a long time ago! The software industry evolved and as the number of companies increased we started to see the advent of what was called vaporware. Soon this was recognized for what it was, companies were disparaged for using it, and accused of practicing FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). A way to paralyze customers, preventing them for buying into a competitors product line for fear there was something better just around the corner, if they could only wait.

So I find it saddening to see the practice of vaporware creeping back, specifically into the Web 2.0 industry but more worryingly into the area of virtual worlds. Surprisingly no one has yet declared that the King has no clothes, and in so doing taken these companies to task. Maybe it is the nature of the virtual worlds industry to have virtual software. I think it more likely, that companies realize that we stand on the brink of the next great land grab, and what better way to kick start things than to perform a virtual mindset grab first.

In the past year or so I have seen companies with no more than a business plan on the back of a napkin capture unprecedented media coverage. Everyone, salivating and speculating over what’s to come. Sour grapes? Most definitely! Especially when we see these companies fail to deliver or deliver a shadow of the promise which is then followed by everyone coming down with a case of selective amnesia.

I also find it interesting how often we hear the mantra following a start up company, “If they have funding they have to be good”, really, as if our ability to judge for ourselves has been surgically removed. Not that there is anything wrong with companies being funded, cough, but funding in its self, is not the measure that we should use to gauge how good a product or company is or will be. Certainly, there have been a huge number of well funded companies in recent history that have gone belly up.

So, it is for this, and other related reasons, that I have finally prodded and goaded myself to put fingers to keys and to write about what’s going on, the good, the bad, and the vapor-ware. With my own company emerging from its first stage of semi-stealth mode, and with one more stage to go, the timing seems right.