Core Concepts:

To understand the Ogoglio platform you must understand a few terms:

As you can see, "you" are at the top of the food chain.  The Ogoglio platform cannot help you determine who you are, so keep moving down the diagram and you will see that the application you use to access ogoglio spaces is your web browser.  When you are walking around in an Ogoglio space your web browser has loaded a web page from a server somewhere on the Internet and then a bit of content in that web page has connected back to the web server to communicate about the space and give you a 3D view.  The rest of this page is a list of entities which your browser and the web server discuss.

Space hosting service:

A space hosting service is simply one or more servers that run the Ogoglio platform (everything below the Internet in the diagram).  These services provide all of the user interface elements of the web site which displays the 3D spaces.  The Ogoglio platform can be used in a great variety of services, ranging from huge public sites all the way down to a tiny service running on an old PC in your closet.

Account:

An account records information about a person or company such as their name and contact information.  As most web pages on the Internet don't require a username and password to view them, spaces can be set up so that they don't require people to have accounts.

There are some advantages to having an account, though, as this enables the Ogoglio platform to save information about bodies, templates, and possessions, which are discussed below.

Body:

Some 3D environments call them avatars, but graphical representations of people in Ogoglio spaces are called bodies to differentiate them from accounts.  An account can have multiple bodies, which can each be modified separately to look and act differently.  Bodies include figure information like height, sex, skin color, hair length, as well as clothing and wearable accessories.

Space:

A space is a collection of records about the location and capabilities of entities in the space.  Each space has its own coordinate system and is separate from other spaces (though below you will find ways to connect spaces).  A space hosting service can simultaneously host multiple spaces.  Each space is ultimately controlled by the account that created it, and accounts can create multiple spaces.

User:

When someone is walking around an Ogoglio space, they are a user.  Being a user is separate from having an account or being a member of a space. A user record simply notes that there is a body in the space and it has a location and motions.  Most space hosting services will connect the concepts of accounts with users, but within the context of the Ogoglio platform users are transient, coming and going as people leave and enter spaces.  Accounts usually persist beyond a single session.

Membership:

Spaces can require various levels of authentication before allowing a user to enter.  The Ogoglio platform marks spaces public or private, which determines whether any account but the owner's will be permitted to enter.  If a space is marked public, it can allow a fixed number of guests and it can also have a membership list.  Accounts listed as members can have varying permissions, from read-only access to full building capabilities.

Thing:

With the exception of bodies, everything you see in a space is a thing.  A thing can be in only one space, and it consists of information about its location and motion, a reference to a template, and settings which can change how it appears and acts.

Template:

A template stores all of the initial information behind the things in a space, including the 3D models, scripts, and textures.  Though you will never see a template in a space, when you walk around a space and see things they are all based on information in templates.  A single template can be used to create multiple things in a space, and the scripts in a template can use each individual thing's settings to make them unique.

Possession:

A possession determines how an account can use a template.  In the trivial case a possession gives an account the ability to create an unlimited number of things from a template and to do so in any space.  Space hosting services can differ in how they implement possessions based on whether they run a marketplace, host sensitive information in templates, or run spaces which are editable by anyone.  In totally open services the concepts of thing and possession might be merged so that people just "make a thing" from a template.

Door:

A door connects two spaces, providing a graphical way for a person to leave one space and enter another.  Some doors are like links in a web page, changing the page which the browser displays, while others offer a greater degree of connection that allows it to appear to people as if they have walked from one space to the other.  Users are allowed to enter a space through a door using the same criteria of membership or guest access mentioned above.

Facades:

The owner of a space can provide facades for doors in remote spaces so that they look different than standard doors.  Facades communicate what can be found on the other side of a door.  Simple facades may provide a sign with the remote space's name, while complex facades can include models which communicate the style of the remote space.