Tag Archives: vSide

The end of Virtual Worlds 1.0, now onto 2.0

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Another Virtual World 1.0 is shutting down. This time Raph Koster’s Metaplace.com. This after vSide shut down earlier in the year and Google Lively last year. Playing off of Web2.0 I would group these and current worlds under virtual worlds 1.0. They’re similar to Infoseek, Excite, AOL, and Yahoo! – Web 1.0.

A few things defined Virtual Worlds 1.0:

  1. All about the technology – Classic problem of building a solution in search of a problem.
  2. Myth of self-expression – In search of a problem, many virtual worlds settled on self-expression as the problem they were trying to solve. Too bad no one was seriously hurting for tools to express themselves.
  3. Installs – Metaplace just used Flash but most had their own proprietary installs. No one like installs, especially the core audience most of these services were going after.
  4. Just 3D chat rooms – When self-expression fell flat and they found it difficult to compete with true casual games sites, these worlds were left with little more than 3D chat.

There are however Virtual Worlds 1.0 success stories. IMVU is incredibly succesful embracing it’s core functionality as just a 3D chat. Ameba has been a big hit in Japan by transitioning a community pre-built around blogs into a virtual world. And then there is always Second Life, probably the winner by default.

Virtual Worlds 2.0

As Web 2.0 rose out of the ashes of Web 1.0, virtual worlds will do the same.

Two things I believe will define Virtual Worlds 2.0:

  1. Built around 3D in the browser – Say hello to O3D and WebGL.
  2. 3D is for entertainment – Unlike what many believe, 3D isn’t exactly good for communication. What 3D is good for is entertainment.

Reminder that virtual worlds start with community not technology

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Many friends have asked me recently if I’ve seen Ameba? Apparently it’s a virtual world for older teenagers and young adults in Japan. Other than maybe it’s Japanese cute it isn’t much different from most virtual worlds, except it’s wildly popular. It’s thriving. But how can that be when virtual worlds, outside of MMOs and kid based worlds, are struggling? What’s different about Ameba?




Being Ameba is from Japan I wasn’t able to get much information going straight to the source. But it looks like any other consumer virtual world; you get your own virtual room, can dress up your avatar, even buy virtual goods. What’s so different? Then I learned a little about the history of Ameba, namely that Ameba started as a blogging community long before it started the virtual world piece.

I thought I would introduce Ameblo, the most popular blogging platform in Japan and talk about the culture and features surrounding Ameblo.

One thing my friends always mentioned about Ameba was how vibrant the community was, how whenever you were in world there were new and interesting people to talk with. That’s because they created that community long before adding 3D and the virtual world. Google Lively, like many virtual worlds, tried to create the technology first thinking that it was so cool people would rush to join. That strategy certainly didn’t work for Google Lively. Nor did it work for vSide. The technology doesn’t create the community however cool it is. It’s something we know in Silicon Valley but often forget – it’s not all about the technology.