A proposal · October 2026

The Metaverse Web

Worlds are websites. Doors are links. You walk the web.

The 1989 recipe

The web won with four simple parts

Part	The web (1989)	The metaverse web
Address	URL	URL + a spawn point
Content	An HTML page	A live 3D world (a website)
Link	<a href>	A portal you walk through
Client	The web browser	The Metaverse Browser: “me”

The idea

Walk out of a Yale classroom and into a Cambridge kebab house.

Each world is its own live website, built by anyone, on any server. A door in one world points to another world’s address. Walking through it is clicking a link.

Architecture

Three live sites; the browser holds you

Metaverse Browser · “me”

localhost:5175

Address bar, back and forward, bookmarks, your name and avatar

Yale SOM, Floor 2

localhost:5173

Darul Kebab

localhost:5174

The current world runs inside the browser in an iframe; the two talk by postMessage.

Protocol v0.1

Four messages make a world linkable

1 · manifest

Each world serves a small JSON file: its name, spawn points and portals.

2 · enter

Browser → world: here is who I am and which spawn point to use.

3 · navigate

World → browser: I walked into a portal to this address.

4 · presence

World → browser: where I am now, such as “near the counter”.

The manifest

A world describes itself

Served at a well-known path, like robots.txt. A 3D browser reads it, and so can an AI agent.

// /.well-known/metaverse.json
{
  "name": "Darul Kebab",
  "protocol": "mvw/0.1",
  "spawns": { "front_door": "…" },
  "portals": [{
    "id": "to_yale", "label": "Yale SOM",
    "href": "http://localhost:5173",
    "spawn": "courtyard"
  }]
}

One trip

From Evans Hall to dinner in five steps

1

You walk into the glowing door in the Yale courtyard.

2

Yale sends navigate to the browser.

3

The browser fades out, logs history, loads :5174.

4

It sends enter with your name and front_door.

5

You appear at the door. The owner says hello.

Press Back and you are in the courtyard again.

The standard, for builders

Six steps put any world on the Metaverse Web

1 Build it

Any 3D website, any engine: three.js, Babylon, Unity WebGL.

2 Spawn points

Read ?spawn= on load. Always have a default.

3 Add mvw.js

One small file: says ready, reports where you are, hands portal trips to the browser.

4 Manifest

Serve .well-known/metaverse.json: name, description, spawns, portals.

5 Host it

Anywhere static: GitHub Pages, Netlify, your own server.

6 Link both ways

Portal to a friend’s address and spawn; they add one back.

The full spec is PROTOCOL.md; world_starter/ is a template that already does all six.

Linking to Yale SOM

Your world, then one portal to mine

Put a portal in your world whose address is Yale SOM and whose spawn is one of its arrival points. List it in your manifest too.

Then send me your address and a spawn id. I add a portal back, and the two worlds are joined.

// your manifest’s portals
{
  "id": "to_yale",
  "label": "Yale SOM",
  "href": "https://zlisto.github.io/
    yale_som_virtual/",
  "spawn": "default"
}

// in your three.js world
<Portal x={0} z={-4}
  href="https://zlisto.github.io/yale_som_virtual/"
  spawn="default" back="lobby"
  label="Yale SOM" />

Honest history

Others tried a 3D web; none became the web

Year	Effort	What it did
1994	VRML, then X3D	An HTML for 3D, with links between worlds
2014	JanusVR	Web rooms joined by walk-through portals
2018	Mozilla Hubs	Shared 3D rooms in the browser
2022	Metaverse Standards Forum	Industry group on interoperability

The idea is old. What changed in 2026 is who walks the web.

What is new

A web built for people and AI agents to walk together.

Every world explains itself in plain JSON, so an agent can enter, look around, talk to the owner and follow a portal, just as you do.

Finding worlds

A search engine reads manifests, not pages

Crawl

Start from a few known worlds. Read each manifest; follow every portal href.

→

Index

Store each world’s name, description, spawn points and portal labels.

→

Rank

Worlds that more portals point to rank higher, like PageRank.

→

Answer

Results open a world at the right spawn point, not just its front door.

Search “biryani” → darul_kebab/?spawn=front_door

Why search is easier here

Every world already describes itself in plain JSON.

No scraping

Google had to guess what a page was about. A manifest just says so.

Deep links built in

Spawn descriptions let results drop you at the buffet or the library.

Agents can use it

An AI asks the index, picks a world, and walks in through the browser.

Roadmap

Build two worlds, then write the standard

1 Darul Kebab

The restaurant, its tables and the owner, on port 5174.

2 Metaverse Browser

Address bar, identity, history and the world frame, on 5175.

3 Portals both ways

Manifests and messages in Yale and Darul Kebab.

4 PROTOCOL.md

The written spec, so anyone can build a world.

First stop

Darul Kebab, reopened.

The first world we build: one dining room in Cambridge, eight tables, and the owner holding a plate of biryani.