[Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia

[Milos Rancic]

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Milos Rancic wrote:
>> The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter
>> of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG
>> is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our
>> future.
>
> Nice to see our resident futurist making some more predictions. This
> reminds me, we're almost halfway to May 29, 2011, the date by which
> the Google Wave client will be the basic component of a modern
> operating system, replacing the web browser.
>
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/39129
>
> I don't suppose you'd like to put a date on this one as well? By what
> date will VR be a significant part of our lives? And will Google Wave
> be embedded in VR, or will VR be embedded in Google Wave?

*****
***** SKIP if you don't want to read about Google Wave
*****

Unlike in prophecy, in speculative prediction "will be" means:

It will be if:
1) Nothing cataclysmic happens.
2) Nothing radically different happens.
3) Matter of prediction goes through the most possible path of development.

Google simply didn't do 3.

Also, I said something like "in a year or two". Such things can be
predicted just as trends and I thought that one or two years are
enough for that -- as it is driven by one large corporation. At the
other side, I don't think that it will happen at all if it wouldn't
become stable enough in five or so years, as something else, like VR
will come.

The point is that Google still didn't do the most basic things to make
their product better. I can list a number of enhancements of Google
Wave, which would make it much more alive. Most basically, integration
with email (inside of Wave of Gmail interface); i.e. to be able to
send email to someone at googlewave.com.

However, Google did quite opposite; they did [almost] nothing. Just a
couple of weeks ago they've added "send me an email when I get new
wave" option; and that increased activity on Google Wave. After ~20
days of nothing, I've got a couple of new waves.

As I said last year, the concept of Google Wave looks too radical to
be supported by one corporation. Previously, I was just dreaming about
something like that: social and collaborative network based on
XMPP+P2P, using enhanced email clients as ultimate communication,
collaborative and social networking programs. At the other side and
because of a kind of lethargy inside of free
software/knowledge/culture movement (this was the time just 8-9 months
distant from the beginning of financial crisis; inner problems were
still obvious: this was the time before the start of our strategic
planning, which means that we didn't even have a clue of what do we
want), I was thinking that such thing (Wave) would be possible just if
some big corporation supports it. And, yes, I was very excited when I
saw that Google did it.

However, the most probable point about Wave is: Google didn't find a
way how to make money from it. Other reasons may be: (1) Wave as a
full replacement of email is in direct collision with one of their
most important products, Gmail. (2) Wave as a full replacement for
social networking and collaboration is in direct collision with other
their products, including search engine. (3) It is a suicidal action.
More Wave servers mean less Google ad share.

Recent positioning of Apple explained to me a lot about Google's
positioning. I suggest reading one interesting analysis about Apple
[1], but very related to Google.

At that point, a year ago, Facebook became very powerful (around that
time, it passed Gmail with the number of users) and I think that
Google management did a number of things relatively irrationally.
Google Wave was not a mature project in September, it isn't mature
still. For example, I would really like to install Google Wave server
(preferably, integrated with MediaWiki [syntax]) for collaborative
purposes. However, Google Wave server implementation is in pre-alpha
stage (I can't find it in Debian experimental and I am not willing to
force installation of unstable software).

Google did a number of other things during the previous two-three
years: (1) They've made Android in response to IPhone. (2) They've
made app store similarly to Apple. (3) They've made Buzz and they've
promoted Google Profile as much lighter responses to Facebook. (4)
ChromeOS for netbooks. (5) <probably something more which I forgot>.

Note that none of their products (except Wave) can be called as
"technological breakthrough", "something new" etc. So, I think that
they just want to stay around and to be able to catch any kind of
technological breakthrough. In other words, Google became too large to
lead any kind of change, similarly to IBM decades ago. They are just
fine now and the vast majority of their products and actions
(including, for example, large scale OCR; but excluding Wave) are just
logical developments of their previous business.

And to word it as a conclusion: Google is not anymore enough to make
paradigm shift.

However, Google Wave is far from a dead project. It is possible that
it will become much more important up to May 29th, 2011 :P

And thanks for reminding me that I should make better explanations at
the time of making some prediction. At the time of predicting Google
Wave as paradigm shift, I didn't have many data which I have now, but
most importantly, I could be clear about all options.

At least, it was obvious then that the main path of Google Wave
development looked like Google's suicide; which clearly said that
Google won't use Wave straight-forward, but just as a tool for
negotiations with other companies. It is not a Doomsday machine for
large Internet corporations, but widely adoption of Wave would
decrease profits of many corporations, including Google. However, "the
machine" is in Google's hands and Google knows it better than its
competency.

*****
***** END of Google Wave
*****

(It is funny that I was thinking a lot week or so about VR, free
software and Wikimedia and I was intensively thinking to raise this
issue. Eugene is my witness: I mentioned that to him the day before
yesterday. And I didn't know anything about Ryzom before yesterday.)

With Ryzom things stay very different. It has been done in cooperation
with FSF. The other important moment is that VR is not about the next
year or two, but about next 5 to 10 years. This is enough time for
making community around a particular project and to make needed
enhancements naturally. Unlike Google Wave, this is fully useful
software, too.

Unlike adoption of Google Wave, adoption of VR is not a minor, but a
major paradigm shift.

Unlike Google Wave, this is fully free software and fully free
content. Their business model is to be an infrastructure provider.
(Their business model can be discussed more.)

As someone previously mentioned, I think that just closed minds can
hold position that VR is not the future of using computers. Writing
and reading has advantages over speaking, hearing and watching, but VR
is not about exclusion of writing and reading, but about incorporating
all previous media inside of the new platform.

We should discuss here about educational consequences of using VR. And
there are many of them. Some of them are already mentioned. I would
add that everything can be understood better if seen and heard. Even a
number of definitions of abstractions. Animals, astronomy, even
learning languages.

And now answers on your [sarcastic] questions :)

* By what date will VR be a significant part of our lives?

5-15 years. As I mentioned before, this is a major paradigm shift,
unlike Google Wave.

* And will Google Wave be embedded in VR, or will VR be embedded in Google Wave?

If Google Wave would be adopted during the next couple of years, it
will be probably embedded in VR.

* * *

I'll write more about this (probably at my blog) as I don't think that
I've covered all issues.

[1] - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/why-steve-jobs-hates-flash.html