Banking on IT by Katherine Coombs

Why I Want the Matrix

I’m not convinced about the value of virtual worlds as they currently stand. I’m happy to be flamed on this one, but for me it’s just not “the thing” as they feel like a game cum escape.  Yes I’m aware that there are many millionaires resulting from Second Life, but I still don’t see the point.  Frankly, if I wanted to play a computer game, I would have held tightly to my “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego” disks. 5-1/4 inch of course. Those were the days.

But back to the topic at hand. I do like the idea of a lifelike web experience based on the real world, as opposed to a virtual world, and actually get quite excited at the prospect. I’ve heard this referred to as 3D Web, Hybrid Web, Real World Web and a number of other names, but to help you visualise what I’m talking about, here is a scenario that occured the other day.

Walking down a main street, I saw a restaurant that I liked the look of, and made a mental note to go to that restaurant at some point in the near future. A week later, it snowed in London, which is a whole other blog entry. It’s April for heaven’s sake. Anyway, it was at that time that I thought of that restaurant, and thought that takeaway from there would be perfect. But have you ever tried to find a store that you’ve walked past when you don’t remember its name??

You can Google by street name and restaurant descriptions and hope that you get a hit. You can ask local friends. You can hope that Google Maps zooms that far in. But when it comes down to it, you’re really rather stuck unless you have some key search terms (such as the elusive restaurant name) to go by.

In the end, we found a website called Street Sensation! which put us on the right track. Someone has gone along the main streets in London and taken a photo of each store, and linked each store with basic information such as name and telephone number. So I could “walk” along the street until I found the restaurant in question and could Google further.

So that is where the web is up to now. Now fast forward a few years to a 3D web. I can place my avatar’s feet on the relevant street on Google Maps, and walk her along until I get to the restaurant in question. Looking at the doorway, I enter the restaurant, and find myself in the restaurant’s virtual world. I can look around the restaurant, see what other diners are eating and associate them with items on the menu. I can read the full menu, order and pay using my real credit card information. And the food is prepared. The only problem is that I then have to brave the real world snow to get the food in question. Until they start delivering that is.

Of course I’m aware that many retail stores don’t have a web presence (yet), much less can they develop a 3D virtual world for their customers to visit. This is especially true of the smaller restaurants that rely on local thoroughfare and word-of-mouth for their business. So howabout we consider another option:

I physically walk along the street and see the restaurant that I liked the look of and would like to explore at a later time. I take out my phone and scan the Zapcode (or similar) in the window. The menu is downloaded to my phone along with the contact details of the restaurant. And synchronised over the air with my Internet Favourites and filed appropriately under “Restaurants” of course. I’d be really rather happy to settle for this in the meantime.