I wonder if it would be possible to create a web browser with a latent virtual worlds capability.

By a "virtual worlds capability," I mean that you could click through the browser into a world where you have an avatar and there's a physics engine, like a video game. The VW-enhanced browser would provide a default avatar to users who hadn't gotten around to designing their own, but the avatar could be customized. I'm thinking of something like Second Life.

It would be up to content providers to create VW sites "behind" their web pages. Users could decline to exploit the VW capability if they chose. But as more users got the new browser, content providers would have more incentive to spruce up their sites with VW content, and then users of non-VW-enabled browsers would start to find the VW clickthroughs that they couldn't use tantalizing. At some point VW-enabled browsers might become the norm. Then there would be new pressure to push up computer and internet connection capacities to handle the new demands of VWs.

At some point, maybe VWs could substitute for a lot of the tasks that now require face-to-face contact. Business meetings, training people in obscure skills. It could trigger a take-off in telecommuting.