The laugh of the day is 3D Mailbox, a somewhat bizzarre application which can best be described as a cross between plain old e-mail and Second Life. Suffice to say that it’s not really useful.

I’ve read about 3D mailbox in a great interview with Richard Bartle, one of the creators of MUD (Multi User Dungeon), which is a general name for a variety of text (and sometimes, ASCII graphics) based virtual world that were popular in the nineties, and had me hooked to my computer for a couple of years. Read it up, it’s good stuff.

But, the 3D Mailbox story made me think about 3D interfaces, virtual worlds, and GUIs of the future. And, once again, I came to the exact same conclusion.

The interface of the future is text-based.

Not text-based as in console; the text can be arranged in windows, or bars, or in any other way, and combined with images and videos. But, the main and the important part of future GUIs will still be plain old text.

Bartle says it well: “Would you want to read what I’m saying here if it were in a 3D setting? Would it help or hinder your ability to follow what was going on?” Perhaps my imagination sucks, but save for futurist idea about plugging your brain directly into the computer, I can’t see a better way of exchanging information (with other people or with your computer) than through a text-based keyboard and a text-based GUI.

This is why I don’t really believe in 3D interfaces, 3D-based apps, and virtual worlds in the sense that they’re going to replace our good old 2D way of communicating with a computer. Everything that makes it harder for us to enter text (e.g. iPhone) is not a good idea. 3D Mailbox? Definitely not a good idea - it would have to be insanely cool, fast, and funny to work. Actually, here’s a rule of thumb for developers: if your idea makes it harder for people to do stuff they normally do, it’s going to have to be 10 times as good as anything else out there to be successful.