The virtual world, There.com, appears ready to reach for some new and broad audiences, announcing Tuesday night that it would finally be offering support for Mac OS X, as well as a new Facebook plug-in and an instant message application that can communicate directly with anyone on the Internet.
In October 2003, There, as it's known, launched to big headlines and heavy expectations.
There.com announced support for Mac OS X, as well as a new Facebook plug-in and the first IM application capable of communicating with those inside the virtual world.
(Credit: Makena Technologies)One of the first 3D social digital virtual worlds, it presented users with a rich and complex environment complete with a functional economy, the ability to create content and even flying hoverboats for five.
But There costs tens of millions to produce and within months of its launch--after many months in beta--the company behind it nearly folded.
What happened next is rather complicated, but essentially, the There virtual world technology ended up in the hands of early eBay employee Michael Wilson, who kept the service alive and set about to rebuild a user base.
Over the years, it has slowly done that, and now it has a steady user base well into six figures.
There draws many comparisons to Second Life, and indeed it may be closer to that popular virtual world than anything else. But it is aimed at teenagers and has strict limits on what users can create. Anything they create must be vetted by Makena, while Second Life users have almost entirely free reign.
(Disclosure: My wife works for Second Life publisher Linden Lab.)
Now, after nearly five years, Mac users will finally be able to check There out. For me, that's a big thing, as I've been separated from my beloved hoverboat for many years since the PC I was playing the virtual world on became too decrepit to be functional and I became a hard-core Mac user.
And many other Mac users, especially students looking for a fun, social, easy-going environment, will also likely be ready to try it out.
Another big part of the Tuesday announcement is ThereIM, an instant message application that allows users to communicate with others on the Internet, even if they're not playing There.
ThereIM is an instant messaging application that will allow users of the There.com virtual world to communicate with others on the Internet who aren't in-world.
(Credit: Makena Technologies)And perhaps the biggest most far-reaching piece of news here could be the Facebook plug-in, known as Facing There, which allows There members to present their profiles, on the vastly popular social networking service. This may not have the richness of other Facebook applications, but it could bring some attention to There in a very large community.
Whether these three developments are enough to get There back on the map is hard to say. In some ways, it has suffered because it hasn't put much energy into publicity the last few years, choosing instead to build a strong, loyal user base through word of mouth.
Here's hoping these moves help it get the notice it deserves.
SAN JOSE, Calif.--I'm down at the Virtual Worlds conference here, and one of the most interesting things I've noticed is that everyone is trying to differentiate themselves from Second Life.
It actually makes sense. The attendees of this conference are largely people who are only recently coming to the concept of virtual worlds, and if there's one everyone's heard of, it's Second Life.
So, this differentiation is happening in two ways.
First, in panels, like the one I'm sitting in right now, titled "Blurring the lines between virtual and real worlds," audience members are asking the speakers, who are from a platform company called Icarus Studios, how their technology differs from that of Second Life.
Then, I turn to the conference program, and I see, on the inside back cover, an ad for There.com, a 3D social virtual world which, like Second Life, launched in 2003.
But There.com hasn't gotten one-hundredth the amount of media attention that SL has, and so the problem becomes: how do you position your virtual world when everyone knows about that other one?
In the case of the There.com ad, it's by pointing out, with big graphics, how it's different from SL.
For example, playing on the common fear of many companies interested in going into virtual worlds that Second Life is too beset by sexual content, the There.com ad has a big no-porn-allowed logo. It attempts to position itself as the safe virtual world by not so subtly talking up how it's very different from the Second Life model, in which anyone can create any kind of content, and many do, and which some fear is a moral free-for-all.
"There.com is a 'PG-13' environment, which means pornography, nudity and extreme language are strictly forbidden," the ad says. "Even though There.com is comprised of 98 percent user-generated content, each item actually goes through an internal approval process before it is released into the world."
The funny thing is that all this proactive differentiation is going on even as Linden Lab, the publisher of Second Life, is largely absent at this conference. In the past, the company has been the major sponsor at many conferences, and has, in some ways, overwhelmed people with its message.
Now, its message is definitely out there, even as all the far-lesser-known companies in the virtual-world space are desperate to try to make sure that, in the end, everyone knows how their product or service is different than Second Life.
And while SL is definitely fighting a perception battle right now, it's clear that, in this community at least, it is still the standard bearer.
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