3pointD.com

It’s been a while since I checked in with Tech Geek Blogger Robert Scoble, but reader Sean FitzGerald sent me a Scobleizer link last night that couldn’t be more 3pointD. An Australian company called Outback Online has a new social 3D virtual world in the works, one that is designed more or less as a competitor to Second Life. The site is advertising “user-generated places,” which of course will be “infinitely scalable.” While the project isn’t very far along yet, Scoble does note, “I saw some brilliant things here that are worth watching.”

In his chat with Outback, the company outlined some of the advantages their platform is designed to have over a service like SL:

• Outback wants to have better graphics than Second Life.
• The company claims it can get up to 10,000 avatars on a single “island.”
• More granualar age controls will make it easier for kids and adults to safely co-exist and interact.
• Developing simultaneously for the Mac only slows things down, they say. But they are also working on an Xbox version!
• “Instead of hosting everything on centrally-located servers they are using P2P to get more people onto islands and bring better graphical performance.”

This last point is of slight concern. Depending on how much of the system is peer-to-peer, this could make a huge difference in what the experience is like. One of the great advantages in Second Life is that everything in the world is persistent (as long as the Grid itself is working). SL’s virtual 3D spaces hang around like Web sites even when the admin isn’t logged in. I have nothing against a constellation of islands small and large, especially if some of these could be tied together into small mainlands — but a constellation of islands that blink on and off is less compelling.

It’s obviously too soon to tell just what this will be or how it will work (no word yet on 3D formats, Web interoperability, etc.), but I’m looking forward to finding out. Australia, of course, is no stranger to virtual worlds, being home to BigWorld Technology, one of the most popular makers of high-end world-building middleware and tools. I’ve also heard there’s interesting in virtual worlds from some surprising quarters in Australia, including companies that already reach into most of the country’s homes. More on that as it develops, but for now I’ll hope for further news from Outback Online, and compliment them on their current tagline: Get ready to show us your outbacks!