How to Turn Your Website Into an Immersive Meeting Space
The internet is becoming more spatial. Tools that were once used exclusively for gaming are now being used for socializing, interacting, and networking. Unfortunately, these spaces can require a lot of time to build and to enter. Creators have to build the world from the ground up, and visitors need profiles and avatars.
Croquet, a company calling itself “the OS for the metaverse”, offers a WordPress plugin that makes an interactive, social, virtual space a part of your website with just a few lines of code. Here’s how you may turn your website into an immersive meeting space for the metaverse.
Croquet Makes the 3D Internet More Accessible
The premise of the immersive webis simple. People exist in space, but the ways that we transmit information tend to be flat. Encountering information and even other people spatially through immersive virtual environments is more engaging. Unfortunately, it is also a technological nightmare.
Entering these virtual spaces usually requires an app download, creating a profile, and customizing an avatar. And all of that is just for the people entering the space, to say nothing of the people building it.
Croquetis a tool for posting immersive and interactive virtual spaces directly within a webpage. Visitors are not even redirected to a new site. Rather, they just see an entrance into a virtual world breaking up text, like they are familiar with seeing a window to a YouTube video or an embedded social media post.
it’s possible to even experience a demo world for yourself at the top of Croquet’s webpage. Navigation is controlled by mouse, touchpad, or touchscreen via a joypad. You also have the option to change your display name and join with voice audio through whatever device you are using.
As a site builder, there are two pathways for putting your own virtual space into your website. The first is for people with a paid WordPress site, and the second is for people using other web tools.
How to Use the Croquet WordPress Plugin
From the stacked dots icon in the upper-right corner of the WordPress draft, selectPluginsfrom the dropdown menu, then selectAdd NewandUpload Plugins. Then, select the Metaverse Web Showcase zip, and selectInstall Now.
Then, back in your editor, create a new block, and select theMetaverse Web Showcasefrom your plugins. This opens a new form for dragging in files, which appear in the virtual world. Once there, the files appear mounted on the walls, but can also be clicked on for easier viewing.
To use WordPressplugins, you have to have at least a business account. Unfortunately, if you have the free version or the personal use subscription, you cannot access additional plugins. If you have access to a WordPress account that someone else administers, you may need them to enable the plugin for you.
Croquet’s Options for Other Platforms
If your site is not on WordPress, you have other options. you may access the files and codes directly fromCroquet. You will need to enter an email address, but that’s it. Once confirmed, you can download the tool as a zip folder or HTML file, or copy and paste the code directly into the source editor.
Unfortunately, this approach still does not work on all platforms. You also can’t use it to force the tool into the free version. WordPress file limitations and other obstacles prevent you from entirely working around the subscription requirement.
What You Can Do with Your Virtual Space
Turning your resume or digital art gallery into an immersive space is a neat trick. However, the Web Showcase offers other tools that can make it more practical.
Multiple people can share the same space. A textbox in the lower-right corner allows visitors to change their display names and then chat through spatial audio. So, your immersive resume isn’t just a 3D LinkedIn, it’s a place where you may talk easily and organically with prospective employers. As for a digital art gallery, we have a hands-on example.
Zach Foxis a photographer, but he’s also a developer with Croquet. As such, he had early access to the Web Showcase tool and used it to turn some of his favorite photographs into an always-on public art installation.
Without leaving a website, you can experience his immersive gallery. Using the pancake stack button in the upper-right corner, you can even invite friends to join the space with you. The button at the top-left allows you to enter a full-screen view of the virtual world.
More to Come from Croquet
Depending on how you view the metaverse, the Metaverse Web Showcase may or may not qualify. But planned updates to make the tool more robust include “portals” to other virtual worlds. And, something like “a connected 3D internet” is a common definition of the metaverse.
Is the metaverse part of the internet? Replacing it? Or something different entirely?
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