Wow … I have been too heads down on projects lately … I missed the
release of the new Croquet SDK Beta!  I’m downloading it as I
write this … and will begin to write more about what I find.

For those who are not familiar with Croquet, it is a full blown 3d
virtual world platform being developed by an amazing team.  It is
cross-platform for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms and is able to be
networked for multiple users to interact.  If you go to the web
site, check out the FAQ, and the Screenshots … they are really worth
seeing so that you can get an idea of what is possible.

What I am currently most interested in is the state of the networking
components.  These were rough when I played with Croquet last, but
to me hold the real network effect value of the platform.  This is
where I am able to “hyperlink” between spaces, and into other
spaces.  Consider that this is the equivilent of hyperlinking
between web pages in the Web … but that I am moving from space to
space in a 3d universe where much of that universe does not exist
initially on my machine.  Oh yeah … it’s all Open Source!

I’ll blog more about my experiences … I’m also starting to learn more
about Second Life and will be comparing and contrasting my experiences.

[04/18/06]
Croquet SDK 1.0 Beta released!

The Croquet Software Developers’ Kit 1.0 Beta has been released. This
represents the first complete public release of the core Croquet technology.
Croquet is a new open source software platform for creating deeply collaborative
multi-user online applications. It features a network architecture that supports
communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation
among multiple users. Using Croquet, software developers can create powerful and
highly collaborative multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations.