Hello OMA3,
Happy Birthday, OMA3! Welcome to the special anniversary edition of our newsletter.
Twelve months ago OMA3 announced its inception as a new Web3 metaverse consortium. Back then we had 9 founders and a dream. Since then, we have grown and taken on the challenges of the industry that only a standards organization can properly address, including metaverse interoperability and NFT royalties. We’ll be taking a look back at everything we’ve accomplished.
The big news this month: the Portaling and Mapping Working Group released its Inter World Portaling System Request for Proposals (IWPS RFP) on our github repo and a group of members have taken it upon themselves to code up IWPS prototypes for evaluation.
In Today’s Email
- Year in review: Let’s take a trip down memory lane
- IWPS Coding Jam: Accomplishing some industry firsts
- Request for Proposals: The IWPS RFP is now public!
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Year in review
We started with 9 founders and a mission to empower users and creators in a truly open metaverse. Our goal was to achieve true interoperability, starting with our founding members but eventually covering all Web3 virtual worlds. Despite the metaverse winter, we have grown and are a thriving community. We now have over 60 members, three partner agreements, and three active working groups. We have begun to expand beyond metaverse interoperability into NFT utility with more projects in the pipeline. OMA3 is becoming the cross-chain standards body for all of Web3, not just the metaverse.
Here’s a breakdown of our diverse membership:
- 23 metaverse companies
- 13 NFT companies
- 11 gaming companies
- 5 identity companies
- 2 AI companies
- 1 DeFi company
In terms of the role each company plays:
- 18 have consumer applications
- 17 offer tools
- 11 run infrastructure
- 10 provide services
- 6 run marketplaces
Looking back this past year, while admittedly it was a slow start as many new ventures are, it is clear that OMA3 has turned the corner and is ramping fast. Here are some key milestones from the past year:
- June 22, 2022: 9 OMA3 founders meet at NFT.NYC and the idea of forming OMA3 is born
- October 26, 2022: OMA3 enters the Swiss commercial registry
- November 1, 2022: Press conference announcement at Web Summit
- January 18, 2023: First weekly Portaling and Mapping Working Group meeting
- May 4, 2023: First bi-weekly Token Working Group meeting
- June 9, 2023: OMA3 releases the SBT Litepaper
- June 15, 2023: OMA3 and Blockchain Game Alliance announce a partnership to standardize Web3 gaming interoperability
- July 3, 2023: The IPWS position paper is announced with Venturebeat
- July 24, 2023: OMA3 and Metaverse Standards Forum announce a liaison agreement
- August 5, 2023: OMA3 prototype group successfully teleports users between web clients on MacOS
- September 20, 2023: OMA3 reaches 50 members
- October 17, 2023: OMA3 announces its NFT Working Group project with Decrypt
- October 27, 2023: OMA3 prototype group integrates Unity SDK and Windows
- October 29, 2023: OMA3 reaches 60 members
We have more projects to announce so keep an eye on your inbox in December and January.
IWPS Coding Jam
OMA3 members are builders, and builders build. Some members are already working on components that could become part of the IWPS standard and have gotten together to develop IWPS prototypes. We’ve had two all-day “coding jams” so far and successfully integrated existing code for teleportation, mapping, and messaging. We have successfully teleported users between worlds that leverage Unity SDK and web browsers (e.g.- WebGL), and run on Mac and Windows. We’ve integrated a highly flexible 3D location format as well.
It’s quite possible the current prototype will be nothing like the final IWPS specification, but the learnings from these efforts will certainly inform the specification process. And as proposals come in and the specification takes shape, the prototyping group will continue to evolve the code to match current thinking and test ideas. Special thanks to our enthusiastic members Space, MultiversalME, Simul, and Root Interface for putting in the groundwork.
IWPS Request for Proposals
The Portaling and Mapping Working Group was the first working group at OMA3. Last July we released a position paper on the Inter World Portaling System (IWPS) and last month we teased a Request for Proposal. Well, the IWPS RFP is finally here!
OMA3 is taking a bit of a unique approach to soliciting input. We don’t want to “pre-ordain” a specific implementation so we are requesting a wide variety of proposals from the community to get as many designs as possible. If you’re working on a virtual world teleportation project, we’d like you to join OMA3 and make a proposal. A proposal can address just a small component of IWPS, or the whole system. We are looking specifically for the following solutions:
- Protocols for enabling teleportation between virtual worlds
- APIs to integrate third party identity services, payment services, and messaging systems
- Asset transfer bridging and verification protocols
- On and off chain data privacy
We will evaluate all proposals in the working group and come up with a draft specification. Once we do, we will release a Request For Comment (RFC) to the public. So, please read the RFP and join the working group.
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Sincerely,
team
