Myrl launches Web-based virtual world
March 21 Mike Butcher
Virtual worlds are all very well but they are usually closed systems which don’t integrate well with the Web, and since the Web won the platform wars a while back it makes sense to integrate the two a little better. Despite this, virtual worlds are still adding users. There are now more than 200 virtual worlds and Gartner Research estimates that 50 to 60 million people will participate in virtual worlds by 2011.
So, a new London-based startup is going to integrate virtual-world-style avatars with the web on an open web platform. Myrl (which stands for My Real Life / My Role Life) is a collaborative platform for avatars enabling interaction between different virtual worlds and the web. Think of it as a social network based on avatars.
CEO, Francesco D’Orazio has now launched a private Beta with Angel funding, which he hopes will allow users to move their avatar between virtual worlds via Myrl’s open web platform.
Your Myrl avatar profile is automatically updated in real-time from the virtual world to the web via a light-weight app called Profiler, but information published can be selected by the avatar.
Currently the platform supports users from Second Life and There.com. Future plans are to support OpenSim worlds and to create relationships with virtual worlds such as Entropia, Active Worlds, Kaneva, HipiHi and Vast Park amongst the others, targeting a market of more than 30 millions users.
I think Myrl is going in the right direction. With Flash 3D appearing some time next year, virtual worlds and MMO games are entering the cloud and moving away from the desktop, so anything Web-based makes sense to me.
Comments
March 21st, 2008 at 9:54 am
I think you’re spot on. Closer integration between virtual worlds and the browser is a logical next step. I had a feeling this was the direction we were heading:
http://www.tomnixon.co.uk/2007/06/why_im_excited_.html
I still think the big question is around what kinds of use-cases there are for avatars/virtual worlds that will draw in a mass market of users. Sure, we will have avatars in our browsers, but why? what will we do with them?
I think we will find an answer to this, but it’s not obvious yet, is it?
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Nice play on my tag:
http://www.knowprose.com/secondlife_consultant
March 24th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
“since the Web won the platform wars a while back”.
Could you elaborate? I wasn’t aware of any “war” between the Web and virtual worlds.
March 24th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“since the Web won the platform wars a while back”.
Could you elaborate? I wasn’t aware of any “war” between the Web and virtual worlds.
As for Myrl, how about a compare/contrast with similar socnets? Right now, this sounds like another Koinup.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
well, Koinup and Myrl look pretty different to me: while Koinup is more of an online repository/sharing tool for images and videos related to vw, let’s say a flickr for vw (there’re also others out there, check out Snapzilla, to name one), Myrl looks more like a facebook/ning with a digg-like backbone for virtual worlds items and some direct integrations between the web and the vw platforms.. it means being able to get in touch with an avatar inworld directly from the web profile, without running a vw client on your machine for example. A part from this, I think that Myrl should seriously consider integrating asap rss feeds from platforms like Koinup and Snapzilla…
March 26th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I think that Koinup is more like a sort of Youtube…or maybe a Deviantart for virtual worlds……….there are all the creatives from virtual worlds there….
Myrl has something similar to Digg and Facebook….
different social beasts….
what did you prefer ?