Google joins effort for 3D Web standard with new plugin, API
Google has released a new open source browser plugin that provides APIs for displaying rich 3D graphics in Web content. Google hopes that the plugin will help to advance a collaborative effort to create open standards for bringing 3D to the Web.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands in the middle of a busy April 2009 for Google's developer-facing teams: early access to the Android 1.5 SDK went out on April 13, and the Analytics Data Export API reached public beta on April 21 itself. The 3D plugin extends the same playbook — ship working open-source code first, then use it as leverage inside a collaborative standards process for bringing 3D to the Web.
The strategic weight is that Google is choosing openness as the wedge into browser 3D: an open-source plugin with published APIs, offered explicitly as a stepping stone toward a shared standard rather than a closed runtime.
First-order effects
- Web developers gain an immediately usable, open-source path to embedding rich 3D graphics in pages — via plugin install and API calls — instead of waiting on a finished standard.
- Google converts its engineering head start into standing inside the collaborative 3D-Web standards effort, letting it shape the spec around what its own code already does.
Second-order effects
- Other browser vendors and stakeholders in the standards group now face a concrete working implementation to adopt, amend, or compete against, raising the cost of staying out of the 3D conversation.
- Plugin-delivered 3D splits the audience between users who install the runtime and those who don't, pressuring content producers to weigh reach against richness until the standard ships natively.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern of 'ship open-source code, then standardize' holds, browser 3D converges on a vendor-seeded open spec rather than a proprietary incumbent — pushing the browser further from document viewer toward general graphics platform.
- A ratified open 3D standard would eventually make plugins obsolete, shifting competitive advantage from who controls the runtime to who builds the best content and tooling on top of the platform.
The trend: Browser capabilities are being expanded through vendors shipping open-source implementations first and folding them into collaborative standards, moving the Web toward a general-purpose graphics and application platform.