3D Websites: To 3D or Not to 3D

A few years ago, we toyed with the idea of building a 3D website. What use is a 3D website you ask? Imagine a completely immersive experience for the visitors to your website. They could literally enter ‘your world,’ however you imagine it. If you wanted your visitors to experience your company on a perfect day, with fairies and cherubs delivering your product or service to the theme song of Jurassic Park, that could be arranged!

Sounds good, right? At the time, we thought so too. New data was showing that an increasing number of users were browsing the web using their game consoles – and many of these, were connected to 3D televisions. But alas, while we thought we had cracked the next best thing, they were not getting the attention we expected.

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Next in the virtual reality race, came Google Glass, a pair of spectacles that augmented the world around you allowing you to communicate with the Internet using voice commands. While Google had the right idea, they didn’t take the virtual reality aspect far enough and overlooked the fashion element. The fact is, the glasses looked silly, but perhaps they were hoping to start a new trend! The prototype was eventually discontinued back in 2015.

stop-trying-to-3v3axsThe latest 3D virtual reality glasses take the Google Glass idea further, providing a completely immersive experience and what makes this so interesting, is that they connect to the Internet via phones or computers. At this stage, they are still limited in what you can access – and you are not yet able to control a Google search with your eye movement, but browsing content on the web may not be far away!

Now this brings us in a full circle. Could there be a new market for a completely 3D website in the near future?

Samsung are now bundling their virtual reality headset with the latest phone offers and if they can fix the ‘firework feature’ on their phones and they start selling like lemonade on a hot summer day, we could see a lot more people indulging in imaginary worlds with these headsets. So Samsung – we are looking to you. Fix your phones and give us a market to play with!

In addition, the world of 3D graphics has come on a long way in recent years. A few major foundations in 3D rendering have been laid using WebGL and a nifty bit of kit called Three.js . If you take a look at the projects undertaken using Three.js, you can quickly see just how impressive the results can be. From the flawless 3D rendering of cars, to walk-throughs in imaginary worlds and layered storytelling for users to delve in to, there is a brave new frontier to explore.

Most of these projects have been developed for computer screens and the effects are marvellous. The experience of the VR Glasses even has your Grandmother excited. So what happens when you merge the two?

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There is a potential market in E-learning, for instance. With so many people suffering from a strict and standardised curriculum, a virtual world could offer a means for them to explore, learn and understand the same concepts in a different (and possibly more enjoyable) environment.

Take the subject of History, for example. What if, instead of listening to lengthy lectures about the topic, you could explore Ancient Rome through virtual reality, interact with the people of that time period and maybe even learn new language skills? Or imagine if you could navigate through a timeline of World War Two. Perhaps, then you might get a few Call of Duty fans interested!

We have always loved this idea, and whether or not it takes off, I think we always will. If you have an idea for a Virtual Reality website, we would love to hear from you!

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

Social media is an online stream of content that facilitates the creation and sharing of ideas, whether it be in the form of images, text, videos, gifs, an infographic or anything else available online. Billions of people around the world are searching for interesting and engaging information about the things they love, want or need.

Although there are many social media platforms, the ones which harness the largest online communities are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE USING IT?

Facebook – 1.79 billion active users
Facebook – 3.2 billion likes per day

Twitter – 317 million active users

Instagram – 500 million active users
Instagram – 3.5 billion likes per day

Pinterest – 170 million active users
Pinterest – 5 million pins per day

Google+ – 1.4 billion active users

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

The social streams were all developed for one purpose: to enable users to find like-minded people and share content. For a business, this is a sales dream come true. If you sell a specific product – let’s say iPhone cases – then you will be able to find large communities of people worldwide who are interested in iPhone cases.

With over 1.8 billion Facebook users, your product or service could be very niche and yet, you will still be able to find the communities who are interested in what you do. Social media is not about how big it is or about how many people are on it, it is about how specific it can be. The world is a big place, full of people with different interests, needs and desires. Social media allows you access to them.

If you build a following of interested users, you can advertise your service or product to them multiple times a day at no cost. This becomes a serious consideration if your following surpasses 10K. Print publications would charge over £800 for advertising space at a similar distribution!

And the more targeted you are in building your community, the better the results. If you are successful with your content, then you can build brand advocacy resulting in others sharing and recommending your content to their following.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

Social media is actually a surprisingly safe place. If your community growth and content strategy is tactful then the responses will generally be very positive. We hear of many people worried about getting negative feedback or ‘trolls’ causing problems. The general rule of thumb with ‘trolls’ is to ignore the bad and praise the good.

Social streams move very fast. If you make a mistake, your audience will have moved on and forgotten it by the next day – so don’t draw attention to it. If there is a genuine problem, look to resolve it elsewhere (email, direct message, telephone or in person) and then release the successful resolution story in a positive way. The more positivity you put out there, the more you will receive!