XYO and Verses: Creating the Protocols for a Web Without Borders!

There have been roughly 2 ½ iterations of the Internet.

The first, Web 1.0, was the most basic. There was no true interactivity and websites were essentially digital pieces of paper, only able to deliver information by way of words, paragraphs, and pictures. Think Geocities or Tripod.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, described Web 1.0 as the “read-only web”. And he was right.

Web 2.0 was a massive leap forward. It brought us social networks and blogs and better interactivity. Videos and streaming became the norm, and web searches delivered hyper-accurate results. The web transcended the desktop and came alive in another place — our mobile phones.

We are now deep into Web 3.0. We can work from anywhere with an internet connection, thanks to apps and browsers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics and machine learning deliver new, tailored browsing and shopping experiences — or at least they try.

But the most important development of Web 3.0 is the Spatial Web, a multi-dimensional 3D Internet that lives in the Augmented Reality (AR) universe or Virtual Reality (VR) worlds. It is a web that has escaped the page and become a web without borders.

With AR, the real world and digital world mesh together. Imagine seeing piece of paper showing a sketch of a model wearing a custom blue gown. Now, imagine looking at the paper through your tablet or mobile phone camera, and seeing a lifelike, 3D version of the model wearing the blue dress that appears to rise out of the paper page. That’s a simple example of AR.

With VR, entirely new, standalone worlds are created. You can enter a VR world with your mobile phone or tablet or by using a VR headset, and you’d be able to see a life-size version of the model wearing the gown — in an entirely artificial environment. The real world — and the paper in the VR — would play no role in this virtual one.

The potential for Web 3.0 to be a multi-dimensional space to buy, sell, access information, enjoy media and more is limitless. There’s no telling how many VR or AR universes will be created, where people can build avatars, promote digital goods, lock down virtual real estate, or even buy digital versions of custom gowns.

But we do know that we need something to tie all these worlds — along with the AI and algorithms and analytics — together. And Verses, a non-profit foundation, is creating that binding, binary fabric.

Verses describes the Spatial Web as a “single, world-wide network linking people, places and things in both virtual and physical, enabling seamless interaction, transaction, and navigation between them”.

But in order to buy or sell goods across this network — or even find them in the first place — you need protocols and standards. Verses is creating an open-source, standard way to interface with Web 3.0, and digital information in VR and AR worlds.

Part of what these protocols will do is index what exists in VR and AR worlds. Verses is using blockchain and their own standards to help people find what they need across the Spatial Web — and transfer them from one person to the other.

With Verses, you could search across the AR world, and find that someone in Hong Kong has a rare avatar that you want . And then you could use Verses protocols and standards to have this digital character transferred to you.

So, where does XYO fit into this? Here is where XYO comes into play, in Founder and Executive Director Gabriel Rene’s own words:

“When you talk about smart factories or smart cities, and when you want to validate a position in space, a drone, an autonomous truck or some cargo, and other things that are moving, XYO is in an amazing position with our network to act as a validator of where something is via proof of location. Versus is the access to the single standard of the record of location, and XYO is the validation. XYO is perfectly positioned to do this at scale.”

We couldn’t agree more, Gabriel! Welcome to the XYO family!