A Melbourne-based startup is seeking to redefine the way people use the web – and has already gained the attention of the US military. Melbourne-based VastPark unveiled its collaboration software of the same name at Communicasia, which creates ‘virtual worlds’ for users to work in with a mesh of voice, video and document manipulation.       

 “What we’re heading towards is a new type of web,” CEO Bruce Joy told CommsDay. “The web at the moment is pretty much about text, images, now some video, but I think what we’re starting to see is more web services coming in and what that starts to mean is dynamic data – it can be pulled from all kinds of sources. The next step beyond this is we’re going to have all this sensor data coming in, beyond that is how do you actually have it so you get all the data you want, represented in the way you want to see it?”

VastPark brings together the data users need and represents it in a cohesive and malleable fashion – meaning users can work together in a Second Life-style 3D world, or with a mix of video, voice and documents as a desktop ‘dashboard’. Working together in the ‘world’, as Joy calls it, allows users to develop projects collaboratively in real time – writing on virtual whiteboards, communicating over VoIP and video, manipulating documents and data of any kind.

The company is now seeking interested organisation to join a beta trial of the software. One large Australian government department has already signed up to test 40 users, but Park said the interest has not only been local: “[We’ve got an] American government military organisation who have been wanting to know what it’s going to cost if they’ve got 250,000 users. So we are having to think and talk about fairly large numbers.

”The platform has been developed by a team of nine predominantly working out of Melbourne, and Park said the software will most likely be used by government departments, intelligence agencies, defence, health, e-learning, and large corporates. “RMIT architecture students use it to create virtual world ideas which they can then explore together. They can pull it in so the teacher can basically run a file and get an uploaded version of all the students projects pulled together as one ‘world’ without having to build it.”Beta testing is hoped to begin in coming months.

- Luke Coleman