3D Internet, also known as virtual worlds, is a powerful new way for you to reach consumers, business customers, co-workers, partners, and students. It combines the immediacy of television, the versatile content of the Web, and the relationship-building strengths of social networking sites like Face book.

Yet unlike the passive experience of television, the 3D Internet is inherently interactive and engaging. Virtual worlds provide immersive 3D experiences that replicate (and in some cases exceed) real life.

People who take part in virtual worlds stay online longer with a heightened level of interest. To take advantage of that interest, diverse businesses and organisations have claimed an early stake in this fast-growing market.

They include technology leaders such as IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco, companies such as BMW, Toyota, Circuit City, Coca Cola, and Calvin Klein, and scores of universities, including Harvard, Stanford and Penn State.

What is 3D Internet?

3D Internet is the next generation after the current 2d web.3D Internet consists of interconnected services, presented as virtual worlds.

Imagine a set-up of interconnected virtual worlds inhabited by users who can visit and consume services through "teleporting" from one world to another.

3D Internet will rely on the same basic technology and components as that of a traditional browser, and it will interact with the same search engines and servers. Aside from the use of 3D computer graphics and personalized avatars, the important difference lies in a much more social experience compared to the two-dimensional Internet of today.

3D Internet is incredibly social. If you're reading a document, you can see other people reading the same document. You connect organically with other people that share your interests and consume the same services that you do.

3D Internet: Why?

One of the often heard arguments against the 3D Internet is in the form of the question “why do we need it?” For most of its users the Internet is a familiar, comfortable medium where we communicate with each other, get our news, shop, pay our bills, and more.

We are indeed so much used to and dependant on its existence that we don’t think about its nature anymore just like we do not think about Ohm’s law when we turn on the lights. From this perspective what we have, i.e. the 2D version, seems “sufficient” and the 3D Internet is yet another fad.

However, if we stop and think about the nature of the Internet for a moment we realize that it is nothing but a virtual environment (cyberspace) where people and organizations interact with each other and exchange information. Once this fact is well understood, the question can be turned on its head and becomes “why do we restrict ourselves to 2D pages and hyperlinks for all these activities?”

Navigating hierarchical data structures is often cumbersome for large data sets. Unfortunately, the Internet as we know is organized as a flat abstract mesh of interconnected hierarchical documents. A typical 2D website is an extremely abstract entity and consists of nothing but a bunch of documents and pictures. Within the website, at every level of the interaction, the developers have to provide the user immediate navigational help.

Otherwise, the user would get lost sooner or later. Since this is a very abstract environment, there is no straightforward way of providing a navigation scheme which would be immediately recognizable to human beings. The situation is not any better when traveling between websites.. It is no surprise that Google is the most powerful Internet Company of our times.