Other World Notes: Does Blerp's Web-in-Social Network Fulfill Philip Linden's Dream of a Shared Internet?

GigaOM: Blerp Adds a Social Network Layer Over the Entire Web

Blerp is a new social network where the network is represented in a frame around the web itself; that way, you can talk, chat, and share content with fellow Blerp users, on any site you care to visit. (Above, for example, is what NWN looks like, while visiting it with Blerp.) While writing this short review about it for GigaOM, an offhand comment from Roland Legrand (which he expands on here) made me realize what Blerp was: another variation of Philip Linden's vision of what he wanted Second Life to become: an Internet that was shared and experienced together. Here he is on the BBC, for example, talking about how technology like SL would make shopping on Amazon more powerful (an oft-repeated use case):

Equally important, Rosedale said, was the visibility or presence that being in a virtual world bestows on its users. By contrast, he said, when visiting a website people are anonymous and invisible. Shopping on Amazon might be much easier and enjoyable if you could turn to one of the other 10,000 or so people on the site at the same time as you and ask about what they were buying, get recommendations and swap good or bad experiences.

Were a social network like Blerp to become as pervasive as, say, Facebook, this very experience would also be possible on it, without having to install and learn how to use a 3D graphics program. Of course, what Blerp does not have is a way of immersively simulating that sense of community, or enabling it to evolve collaboratively in real time -- there, Second Life still shines. I still agree with Philip that a shared Internet is where we're going. More and more, I believe something like Blerp will be a larger part of that future, with worlds like Second Life still important but subsumed within it, as alternate (and temporary) 3D experience channels. What's your take?

Comments

[Bettina Tizzy]

Sounds like Weblin.

[Bettina Tizzy]

They really worked hard on the name, huh? ROFL A LOT.

[Ann Otoole]

Another bodily noise named fad system rofl.

(I'm not amused with or disrespecting the technology. It amuses me that venture capital people with too much money on their hands all seem to have a fascination with any company named for some sort of bodily noise. lol )

[Hamlet Au]

I think there's a Silicon Valley betting pool wagering which VC can get the biggest valuation from the weirdest sounding company name. Google can't hold that title forever.

[Doubledown Tandino]

I've been playing with blurp for a few hours.
I dig it, then I tweeted about it, now I'm blog commenting about it... later I'll blerp that I did all this on my facebook page. ... that is if I don't break my own neck first.

[Jovin]

That's it. I'm going to start my own anti-social network. It'll be dead easy to code - just a chat window which doesn't connect to anything. You type in what you're currently feeling, thinking or doing and it does....nothing.

We'll call it 'YAWN'

[Honour McMillan]

This time (I think) last year I experimented with Weblins - cute, interesting. But I found that when I was reading the news on CNN (for example) I resented somebody trying to chat with me.
I think I found a line behind which I would just as happily not be networking thank you.
It was a bit of a shock as well to be continually reminded that you aren't alone with your thoughts anywhere in cyberspace.
Or maybe I'm just old and grumpy. :)

[Steve Hoffman]

I'm the CEO of RocketOn, and I couldn't help reading all the comments above regarding the name "Blerp!" Here's the story... originally, we were going to call the site Hyperlayers.com, which we also own. But Hyperlayers seemed to too techie for the mainstream users, and yes, our VC didn't like it. So we searched and searched and searched, and eventually Blerp popped into our silly, little heads! It's short, easy to remember and guttural (blerp!).

Sincerely,
Steve Hoffman