The Immersive Web

The immersive web is on the horizon.

Think back for a moment how the web looked like 10 years ago when smartphones were just about to become widely accepted by the mainstream consumer. Most websites were'nt optimized for browsing on a small display and even if, most just redirected to a separate subdomain. Remember the http://pda.xyz.com subdomains? And most only provided a small portion of the actual content. But still, this was a step in the right direction, because the owners & developers of those websites acknowledged the potential of this new way of interacting with a website.

Back then it was innovative and forward-looking to optimize your website for smaller screen sizes.
And now the lack of a responsive layout is almost considered embarrassing. Instead of pinch-to-zoom to view the content, users intend to just leave a website.

With Virtual Reality, we're now sort of in the same place the pda/smartphone market was 10 years ago.
Most devices are in the hands of early adopters and enthusiasts, while the mainstream consumer is still not sure why he/she should spend money on something like that (Remember those who asked back then: Why in the world would you carry a computer in your pocket 24/7 with you? That seems kind of unnecessary...). Not to mention the high entry costs, with expensive headsets and the powerful PC needed.

But VR is about to step out of the enthusiasts and early-adopers field.

Because of cheap standalone headsets like the Oculus Go or the upcoming Daydream-headsets from Google, it gets easier to also join the VR party. Smartphones get more powerful every year and devices like the GearVR introduced VR to millions of people. And while prices drop on the initial headsets like Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, other big names in the tech industry (Samsung, Dell, Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo) join Microsoft on their Mixed Reality approach and build more affordable MR-Headsets. Meanwhile the price for a VR-ready PC also decents every month.

With every sold VR headset the incentive rises to provide those users also a version of the web thats tailored to their respective device.

Thats where the immersive web comes in.
Awesome people at Mozilla and Google are currently building the base for this by developing the WebVR (or now WebXR) API. And with frameworks like a-frame or reactVR it gets easier for web developers to build immersive web applications.

seliqui e.U. was founded with the vision to help establish the immersive web as the third way to view content on the web besides desktop/notebook screens and mobile phones. With over 15 years of experience in web frontend development and 8 years creating 2D/3D Animations it seemd the perfect fit and the right place & time.

While the people on the Mozilla MR, Google VR and A-Frame team are working hard on developing and expanding the WebXR-API, seliqui e.U. currently focuses on the integration into Content Management Systems to mirror all desktop contents within a WebXR version of your website to assure the maintenance of all contents is as easy as possible.

You may think now: Sounds interesting, but I cant really imagine how this all will look like.
A first approach has been made with the website of the Virtual Reality Graz Meetup Website at vr-graz.at which features both a 2D Website for devices like Laptops, Desktops, Tablets and Smartphones - but also a WebVR Version specifically for VR Headsets.

But the truth is - like in the early days of the arpanet, nobody imagined how the internet of today looks like and how impressive some websites are that developers and designers came up with.

We are now on the frontier of a new way to interact with the internet.
If you are interested, feel free to get in contact!