In the last blog article, we noted that seeing someone is a fundamental part of human interaction. When we spend much of our time in the digital world, human interaction is greatly lost or is largely limited to social networks where we interact in silos with friends. Why? Because there is no way to spontaneously meet with like-minded people or make new acquaintances. We want to change this and so transform the World Wide Web into a vibrant space where people meet, interact, and just live. In the second part of our little blog series, we would like to show you how and with which technology we can realize this. To bring real life to the Web, the solution has to carry over all important aspects of real life. **Which aspects are these?** First of all, there are of course people in our world. You, me, your family, your friends, and a great many strangers. They are all individual people, look different, and exist in the visible world (unless you have contact with the spirit world, but that would be a bit creepy). Also, you can all interact with each other: talk to each other, discuss, rant, and much more. In order to act in this world, we humans possess all kinds of things and can exchange these things. And fortunately, we humans are not two-dimensional cardboard figures, but can move freely and explore the world out there with all our senses. These are the fundamental aspects which shape our everyday lives and our existence as human beings. And we at weblin want to transfer this to the Web. Every single aspect. How? People become visible on the Web through the weblin.io browser extension. You will then appear as a small avatar - the weblin - at the bottom of the webpages which people are currently visiting. You can personalize and name this avatar as you like. When you see other avatars, they are real people who are on the same website. They can be friends, family, or strangers. And just like in real life, you can interact with anyone you see and talk to them through a chat, through a personal video conversation, or through statements which are public for all to see (e.g. posters in a product demonstration). Of course, your weblin can also own things: pictures, documents, items, NFTs, and much more. All these things are stored in your weblin's backpack and can also be exchanged with other weblins by drag and drop. And of course, your weblin can accompany you on every website you visit. But beware: I forgot one serious difference to the real world. Unless you're Harry Potter, you don't have a cloak which makes you invisible. If you walk around or shop in the real world you will be seen by other people. But with weblin you have full control on the Web. With just one click, you can decide if you are visible or not: just by activating or deactivating the browser extension. Sounds super simple, doesn't it? So weblin brings real life to the Web and creates its own lively and animated world on every single website – a metaverse which has no digital boundaries! But what does that mean when you can act on the Web like in real life? What are the implications and where are the effects felt? We'll look at this in the third part of the blog series. Be curious!
