Google in 3D

I’ve been thinking about this blog post for a long time now, and originally had hoped to write up the ideas in a polished deck to share on slideshare. Sadly, after 4 years in the industry – I’m still rubbish at making beautiful decks and prefer explaining things in long hand written format. Unfortunately for you (and me), this means it has now turned into a monster of a blog post.

Over a year ago – I posted about 2009 being a turning point for 3D technology adoption on the basis that CES was teeming with news about 3D technology and because Activision Blizzard had released a patch for World of Warcraft which allowed players to experience the game in 3D if they had the latest NVidia technology and a compatible display. At the time, I wasn’t certain that 3D was really going to take off – and thought it could go the way of the HD-DVD format. Even after the first few feature length films came out in 3D, it was a guessing game as to whether or not people would enjoy the experience enough to pay the premium ticket prices which in turn would justify cinemas investing in 3D projection technology. After all - throughout the 2000’s, there had been a few sporadic 3D outings such as ‘The Polar Express’ in 2004 – but these visits to the 2D world were few and far between; nothing hinting at 3D becoming a common part of life.

2009 saw a change in tempo. In late 2008, the first 3D film I had ever seen (not including 3D films watched in Disney World Florida as a child) was an animated feature called ‘Bolt’. In 2009 this was followed in quick succession by Aliens vs. Monsters, Coraline, Up and of course… Avatar which has broken more box office records than I knew existed. Little did I know as I watched the film – that this was anything but a bit of good luck. An article in Wired explained that James Cameron has spent the best part of a decade amassing teams to make 3D technology GOOD whilst convincing the cinemas across  the US that they needed to start installing 3D projection technology (which he helped to pioneer), and it worked. Despite James Cameron’s tale feeling a bit like every sci fi film from the last 20 years mashed together with a pinch of Pocahontas’ plot thrown in for good measure – I’ve not met a person who’s seen the film who didn’t feel a bit like they’d experienced something wonderful and the interwebz has buzzed with news stories of people actually suffering from depression after watching the film due to real life suXX0ring compared to the Avatar universe (although many people think that these people were depressed before seeing the film and are using Avatar as an outlet to express their dissatisfaction with life… a bit similar to people who spend a lot of time playing MMORPGs).

To top this off – technology blogs as well as CES (for the 2nd year in a row) have started reporting on new 3D technologies with increasing frequency over the last year, noticeably accelerating in the last few months. Brands with influential reach such as Sky, have announced 3D products to be launched in the UK in 2010, and if they can achieve a similar adoption curve to that of HD – then we can expect 3D channels on Freeview within a few years when the passive massive will truly be tempted to go out and buy 3D ready TVs. Of course these possible futures hang in the balance. People might decide that 3D porn isn’t a good thing and it could easily go the other way with the technology bombing.

However… thinking about what could be if the technology does take off. Imagine we get to a stage where 3D tech adoption reaches the levels that HD has today (which still isn’t great by the way). Imagine… 3D glasses are cheap, and a dozen of them lying around the house.

How long would it be before 3D technology jumps to the web? I’m not talking just about YouTube, and BBC iPlayer in 3D – I’m talking about a complete overhaul of the user interface of major websites to incorporate interactive 3D elements.

This idea kept me thinking for a while. In fact for the last couple of months, a I’ve still not thought of a comprehensive answer to this question. I’ve finally accepted that it isn’t on my shoulders to do so – this is an idea that needs to be  interpreted by the masses, by the web developers of tomorrow, and the Twitter founders of next year.

What I have been able to do is ask more questions.

• Will Google Chrome be the first web browser which renders 3D websites?
• Will Adobe Flash natively support 3D (if the platform is still used by then)
• How would website navigation work in 3D? Will it be the death of the top and left hand nav bars? If not – will the way these nav bars render change drastically?
• How will 3D affect social networking? Will it be as basic as people posting 3D photos (taken with cameras you can already buy today) or will it change it on a more fundamental level?
• How will the public react to 3D images on major news portals of events around the world (imagine the aftermath of earthquakes, images of war etc)
• Who will make themselves famous by creating the first 3D YouTube viral video?
• Will 3D banner ads create a mini boom in the digital media industry due to a spike seen in click through rates that they would generate
  • Mini boom due to the CTR’s being inflated by the novelty factor – similar to the high click through rates being enjoyed by mobile banner advertising today (they will decline steadily over time)
• Will Google offer 3D Sponsored Links (as crudely illustrated in the main image for this post) and charge a handsome bid premium for it, adding to the digital media industry boom?

I’m sure there are more questions – and I’m sure there are people out there who can answer them.

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be spending part of my time at Hyper investigating 3D technology and keeping abreast of developments as they happen – hopefully by talking to the right people I’ll be able to help answer some of these questions or hopefully ask even better ones. Ideally, I’d go to organisations like Google and Adobe and be able to ask some of these questions directly. If they can’t answer them – I hope they spend some time thinking about them and are interested enough to escalate my search.