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The Croquet Consortium has released SDK 1.0. Croquet is an Open Source virtual world which is built on Squeak. Squeak is an open source version of Smalltalk.

So what does Croquet do? Well I opened it up to take a look and see how much has changed. The biggest news to come from Croquet is Qwaq. Most of the developers within the croquet community came together to produce a commercial project Qwaq Forums. This means that there are a number of people that believe that there is commercial potential behind 3d virtual worlds.

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There has been a great deal of hype surrounding Second Life. You can’t turn around, it seems, lately without hearing about Second Life in the news. I’ve even heard some virtual interviews that where hosted in Second Life on the radio!

So the question remains, is there more to Virtual Worlds, then a chance for people to make money in Second Life? Most everything that Qwaq has done is already in or is being added to the open source code. Will free virtual worlds have as much of a draw? Will it take someone to set up a paid world using Croquet before it gains traction?

There is obviously money to be made in 3d worlds. Will most websites have 3d rooms? Will you be able to get into a car and drive it around on your computer, before you buy it? Will you be able to walk through a virtual art gallery and purchase paintings? Wouldn’t it be cool to ask someone standing in a virtual art gallery, “What do you think that blob of paint means?”

Ok it’s true, I admit it, I’m biased. Having done Smalltalk programming for many many years and building huge systems, I would really love to see smalltalk gain greater market share in the dynamic languages arena.

So I’d like to know, would you download a plugin to see virtual worlds on websites? You did it already for Java, would you load a Smalltalk plugin?

Anyway, back to how has Croquet changed. It feels much faster, but it is still buggy. The worst part of it is that once it gets buggy if you are not familiar with squeak you are totally lost. (it’s best to just shut it down and start over.)

Quick Joke: How does a programmer fix a car? Answer: He/she gets out then gets back in and tries it again!

If you look past some of the buggy behavior, it is very cool. How to move around is not obvious. You need to right click or option click and move the mouse forward to go forward, back to go back, right and left. Don’t bother reaching for the arrow keys, unless you want to go up or down (like flying). I find this way of maneuvering pretty cool, but I can imagine that some people will get stuck and frustrated until they figure it out.

The other problem is that even though you can do some things, there isn’t anything really cool yet to do. I did chase the moon as it revolved around the earth and landed on it. (well eventually it hit me and picked me up) That was fun.

Swimming as a fish is really neat. You can draw your own fish too, but there is still so much more that needs to be done. The biggest thing that still needs to happen is to have a way to connect up communities. The discovery service that is planed should help that.

So how will virtual worlds change the internet? Perhaps when the video game generation tries standard computer applications they will demand more. We’ll see.

It’s much harder to get lost in a virtual world. Qwaq poked its head out of hiding today and released its first product: A virtual forum that enables collaborators to interact in real time. It’s not hard to imagine what an impact this new technology will have on business collaboration.

Sure there are a lot of players in business groupware. There are a lot of ways to solve the same problems, we now have video conferencing, screen sharing, remote access, group calendars, there is Skype, Grove, Notes and even Microsoft Office claims to solve group collaboration problems. So what makes Qwaq different? Well as someone that has tried all these groupware products I can tell you the answer is like asking: what is the benefit of a parachute to falling from an airplane.

Sure you can claim that everything old is new again, but not like this. Groupware today is painful. Yeah it kind of works, but participants quickly learn its limitations. The experience leaves much to be desired. The major piece that is missing from most group collaborations and presentations is you.

Qwaq puts you back in the picture. This is not presentation software, it is not powerpoint, or VNC. This is a real virtual world where you are represented, have control over your actions, can drag information off your computer and place it in a secure virtual world for all your co-workers to see. You can share applications, build 2d and 3d simulations, go off and have a private conversation, do whatever you like.

Qwaq builds on the Croquet Open Source Project. It is clear that this is a starting point. Where will it go from here? How will Qwaq change business collaboration? Ask yourself why would anyone want email when regular mail is so easy, or why would anyone want IM when email is already so fast. Will Qwaq be the next evolution in business collaboration?

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