Sirikata’s websocket capability illuminates a new avenue
A couple of days ago, I managed to upload code that changes our ad-hoc TCPSST protocol to a wire protocol compatible with the recent websocket IETF drafts. Additionally in the months of September and October, Patrick has been working on ProtoJS, an implementation of google’s protobufs inside javascript, allowing javascript to speak the linga franca of our message serialization format: protocol buffers. What this means is that we’re taking a step towards breaking down the proverbial wall between web apps and heavyweight fat clients and servers that currently dominate the realm of 3D virtual worlds and games.
By allowing javascript-enabled webpages to invoke connections to Sirikata servers, we suddenly open the floodgates to mashups that display statistics about virtual worlds, chat interaction, 2d clients using the new canvas tags or adobe flash to display objects in the world.
But we can take this one step further: as the WebGL standard is approaching finality and O3D is becoming more mature, there is the possibility to make a webpage that can display and interact with a beautiful 3D Sirikata world with the click of a link. As we build a web-based client on javascript and as Sirikata clients begin to speak to ever more servers, like OpenSim, it is possible to imagine a world wide world: the democratization of virtual worlds to the point where anyone can host a world and anyone can join a world as long as they have a browser in front of them.
This makes me imagine a youtube-like usecase where people are sharing their virtual worlds and enjoying popular worlds together.