Timeline of Virtual Environments Inspired By The Metaverse Concept
Since Stephenson's novel appeared, improvements in internet technology, bandwidth, and computational power permitted real-life implementations inspired by the concept of the metaverse to develop. A brief timeline of notable platforms and developments include:
- 1993 - The Metaverse was launched, a MOO (a text-based, low-bandwidth virtual reality system) by Steve Jackson Games as part of their BBS, Illuminati Online.
- 1995 - Active Worlds, which was based entirely on Snow Crash, popularized the project of creating the Metaverse by distributing virtual-reality worlds capable of implementing at least the concept of the Metaverse.
- 1998 - There was created, wherein users appear as avatars and, in addition to socializing, could purchase objects and services using the virtual currency therebucks, which were purchasable with real world money. There.com closed on March 2, 2010, but reappeared in 2011 as an invite-only world to users age 18 or older.
- 2003 - Second Life was launched by Linden Lab. The stated goal of the project is to create a user-defined world like the Metaverse in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate. It is usually used from a third-person perspective (although first-person "mouselook" is available), and its current technology (like the others listed here) does not yet allow the photo-realistic environment described in the Metaverse of the book.
- 2004 - OpenSimulator appeared, developing free virtual world software that is protocol-compatible with Second Life.
- 2004 - X3D was approved by ISO as the successor to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) as the open standard for interactive real-time 3D (web3D). Today X3D is the standard defining the 3D web and mixed reality Open Metaverse by combining virtual, mirror, and augmented realities with the web.
- 2005 - Solipsis launched, a free open source system aiming to provide the infrastructure for a Metaverse-like public virtual territory.
- 2005 - The Croquet Project began as an open source software development environment for "creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications on multiple operating systems and devices", with the aim of being "more extensible than the proprietary technologies behind collaborative worlds such as Second Life". It was used to build virtual worlds such as the Arts Metaverse', but after the release of the Croquet SDK in 2007, the project changed names and became the Open Cobalt project.
- 2007 - Several social networks developed to provide profiles and networking capabilities for metaverse avatars, including Koinup, Myrl, AvatarsUnited. These projects faced many challenges related to the lack of DataPortability of the Avatar across many virtual worlds and attempt to address the possibility of managing multiple accounts on a single dashboard. (AvatarsUnited was later purchased by Linden Lab, and then shut down when some social networking features were added to the SecondLife.com Website.)
- 2008 - Google Lively was unveiled by Google through the Google Labs on July 8, 2008. It was intended that new features would be added over time, but on November 19, 2008, it was announced that the Lively service would be discontinued at the end of December.
It should be noted that various massively multiplayer online games bear a resemblance to elements of the Metaverse, although they typically focus on specific gaming purposes rather than socializing.
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