An Australian company launched a free tool yesterday it says offers Web browsers a world-first opportunity to view the Internet in three dimensions.
Melbourne-based ExitReality said its application allows users to turn any regular Web site into a 3D virtual environment, where an avatar representing them can walk around and meet other browsers viewing the same Web site.
Founder Danny Stefanic said that previously only specialized Web sites such as Second Life and World of Warcraft allowed users to enter a 3D environment.
“ExitReality goes far beyond that,” he said. “It allows you to view not just one Web site but the entire World Wide Web in 3D.”
Browsers can use the tool to turn their social networking pages on sites such as Facebook and MySpace into a virtual apartment, where photographs are displayed on the wall and links to friends are “doors” leading to other apartments.
Users can customize their flats by “decorating” with 3D versions of couches from stores such as Ikea or downloading an e-jukebox to play music clips stored on their personal page.
Similarly, using ExitReality on video-sharing Web site YouTube creates a virtual cinema, where the browser’s avatar sits next to other users also logged on to watch the clip they have selected.
Stefanic said the tool transformed the Web from a solo experience into one that could be shared with friends and other users interested in the same content.
Stefanic said there was a wealth of 3D content on the Internet that conventional web search engines ignored.
He said ExitReality made use of this content to render regular Web sites into 3D.
A regular two-dimensional news site appears as a 3D streetscape, with stories and photographs highlighted as billboards, while sections such as sport and business are virtual lanes that the user can navigate their avatar to.
The banner ads that normally sit at the top of Web sites appear in the virtual sky, trailing from digital airplanes.
Stefanic said such effects made the Web site more interesting for users.
The tool, a 3.5 megabyte Internet plug-in that takes about 20 seconds to download, is available for free.
Stefanic said ExitReality would make money in a similar manner to Google, by generating a mixture of “sponsored” links and “organic” results when browsers use the search engine.
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