I’ve admonished the unquestioned march towards 3D on the web before and the debate has bubbled up elsewhere as well. Yes, there can be good uses of 3D on the web, just like there can be good uses of flash. And yes, there will be very few effective uses of 3D on the web, just like there are very few good uses of flash and other plugins (but still there are still some excellent ones).
Regardless, the inevitable 3D web software is coming. Explicitly outlining the usually thinly veiled conspiracy to drive people to buy faster processors, this quote from the News.com article on MacroMedia and Intel’s 3D software initiative sums it up well:
“The focus was to get someone to go out and upgrade to a Pentium 4,” Benoit said. “We wanted to create new and compelling content that wasn’t out there and that would cause people to make a decision to upgrade their processors.”
Let’s hope it goes the way of “push ” web technology.
Both from News.com:
Who wants to see 2D lettuce? Not me. But if I was in to that sort of thing, I think 3D lettuce would be pretty spiffy.
Matt, you just want to see 3D Katie Holmes.
Warning, inaccurate second-hand Katie Holmes anecdote follows:
CBC (or some network) gymnastics or figure skating (or some sport), Katie Somebody (not Holms) is called Katie Holmes by the announcer. He does not correct himself.
Note: I do not watch figure skating, nor was I ever a figure skating champion. Both of these things are ok though, of course.