The Web With A Face?

The web is finally coming alive.  It's not that this is new, but consumers are finally adopting this moreso in the past and we're seeing some great new startups emerge into the avatar & virtual world space. 

Meez is the latest startup that has landed funding ($4.3mm) and was recently in Forbes Magazine (March  28, 2006).  Sean Ryan, formerly CEO of Rhapsody is at the helm and is positioning Meez well wihtin the marketplace by striking some business development deals with major sports leagues and other brands.  The whole point of Meez is to make your 3D ID (identification).  The avatar can be customized pretty robustly to look like you, or whatever your mind conceptualizes.  It than integrates into Myspace, Live Journal, AIM, and coming soon...casual games.

This is the first service that I've heard of (I can be 100% mistaken) where an avatar that exists out of a game can be brought into.  This is fascinating - as gamers can now play multiple games with the same avatar (granted, they are participating in the Meez program - or they're standards setup within the avatar industry).

There are some competitors within the avatar industry - but not really a direct competitor to Meez.  IMVU has created an instant messenger that uses 3D avatars.  Comverse Technologies has created Klonies, which are avatars for the mobile world.  Sitepal....What's coming next?

These are exciting times within the virtual worlds and games industry.  Lines are blurring as to what a game is and what a virtual world is, in some cases.  Is Second Life a game?  It's a virtual world with a real economy.  There are games within Second Life - but I'd argue it's more of a world...  These avatars will help us bridge the gap between external and internal characteristics.

Tags:  Meez, LiveJournal, Sean Ryan, IMVU, Virtual Worlds, and avatar

Comments

[Charlie]

Not sure how it will integrate with MySpace since its Java-based... no Java in MySpace. Sitepal is already integrating into MySpace... I know because some cute girl just left me a MySpace message saying she liked my SitePal. :)

[Xen Mendelsohn (Dolev)]

The web is just another sphere to try different personalities and characteristics to explore ourselves. In that way, there's no real difference between a virtual world, a game or a chat over the web.

[Tony Walsh]

Darren, the avatars exported from Meez are merely static graphics files, not animated or interactive 3D characters. Wherever you'd use a GIF or JPG online, you can use your Meez picture. No special technology at work here.

I recommend creating an avatar yourself to see how it's done and what the export options are. It took me under 10 minutes to do a test-run.

[Sean Ryan]

To Tony's point, he's right that the current Meez export options are static files, but since the Meez are actually built in 3D, you will see us roll out much more animated options shortly -it's only been a week :). - Sean Ryan

[Sean Ryan]

To Charlies point, Meez is java-based as a creation tool, but we can export the Meez avatars in wide variety of formats, starting with the current JPEG versions which work on MySpace, but soon expanding into more interactive ones.

[Rose]

3D faces animated in video format from users' photos can be ordered at http://www.image-me.com, a good number of them for free.