More Browser-Based Virtual Worlds: The Electric Sheep Company Releases WebFlock
Erick Schonfeld
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Sibley Verbeck is moving past Second Life. The CEO of the Electric Sheep Company has made a lot of money creating virtual islands in Second Life for big brands such as CBS, Showtime, and Intel. But now he is ready to bring those virtual worlds to the Web in regular browsers. Today, he is releasing WebFlock, a Flash-based 3-D virtual world application he is offering as a hosted software service.
WebFlock worlds are private-label virtual environments targeted at big brands who want to have a 3D presence online that is more accessible than worlds like Second Life, which require a separate software download. Although we’ve seen $345 million invested in virtual-world startups so far this year, there is a definite trend of those worlds moving into the browser. For instance, recently launched virtual-world startup Vivaty is all browser based, and Google is experimenting with Lively, its own browser-based virtual environments.
None of those other efforts, though, are Flash-based. They only work on Windows machines (because they tap into ActiveX). WerFlock worlds are viewable in any browser that supports Flash (i.e., nearly all of them). It supports 3D avatars, chat, virtual currencies, games, and embedded images and videos from YouTube and other parts of the Web.
Verbeck is offering WebFlock as a hosted service to the same types of big brands he creates virtual islands for on Second Life. For instance, his first customer is Showtime’s The L-Word, which already has one of the most popular Second Life islands (created by Electric Sheep). By bringing that same virtual environment to the browser, Showtime thinks it can reach a much bigger portion of its audience.
Verbeck took the same underlying technology Electric Sheep uses to create other virtual environments, called Aspen, and is now applying it to browser-based worlds. He envisions these 3-D worlds as standalone places integrated into different Websites. Connecting them together would make them more interesting.
WebFlock does not come cheap. A ‘basic implementation,” which includes a 3-D space, avatars, and basic features, will cost “under $100,000″ for 12 months. And he is not abandoning his Second Life business entirely, but this new emphasis shows that he sees that the writing is on the wall for virtual worlds that are closed off (or at least hard to get to) from the rest of the Web.
I wonder when World of Warcraft will launch a browser lounge extension…
I wonder if they could drive the costs down by using some virtual marketing. Once they get it down, I’m sure they’ll start offering to smaller websites.
The investments in virtual worlds, as you mention, are huge and I can only imagine they’ll continue to increase. Although, a plug-in isn’t the way to go.
Consumers are just going to flock to brands virtual works just like they flock to brands web sites. Come on. History repeats itself.
Play games at http://www.harryballs.com
Still won’t work … at least people can’t make the “first life” joke with that site …
Wow, so fatass 30 year old virgins from their computer in their parents basement can look like George Clooney in this world. Success guaranteed.
As if second life wasn’t enough, people please do something innovative.
Yeah…I’m not sure white label is the solution here. I’m involved in a virtual world project now for an ad agency and our hook is more utility / media sharing based, the idea being that yet another virtual world destination would just fizzle. I mean, if SecondLife couldn’t be a destination where brand presence was viable, why would a Third or Fourth or FifthLife?
Meh?
Because this is in a WEB BROWSER??? this is totally different than Second Life. I tip my hat to them.
Mike
Ever heard of ’spell check’? That article reads like a bad high school student wrote it.
The browser aspect is very important. It doesn’t require a bulky software download like secondlife. This is more in tune with the current of where the internet is moving - everythign web-based and easily accessible at the typing of a couple words or the click of a mouse. This is good innovation. More tips to innovate a business idea here… http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
Eager to see how they run with this. The visual quality and style is a lot more in-tune with a professional offering than a lot of the other options, but still strikes me as outdated and unrealistic held against mainstream gaming standards.
A step in the right direction, but still hasn’t pushed far enough outside the conventional “games are games” mental box.
The mistake I already see is to have “Children” avatars. This has ALWAYS proven to be an issue in the past.
Yes, we are talking pervert central here.
This could really go viral and seems to have beaten Areae to the punch.
The article fails to mention if users can create their own content which is one of second life’s few draws. After all that’s how Electric Sheep makes their money right?
This is a good idea, the guy seems really competent if he made money like that
http://www.themostpowerfulcompany.com
This is a great idea that has been coming for a long time. I’m interested in seeing how this does against Lively. The only downside is the steep price for it locks out small sites. I’m pretty disappointed with that.
This is nothing like Second Life. And whether or not there are “child avatars” would seem to be left up to the brand, since it appears that each “world” is custom. On the ESC site it’s mentioned that while this service can be deployed on a website intended for children (e.g. a toy manufacturer’s web page), appropriate filters can be switched off for more adult-oriented properties (e.g. “The L-Word”). I imagine they can remove child-like avatars without much effort.
And no, sims cheats, ESC does not make their money allowing users to create content. It seems you’re confusing Electric Sheep with Linden Lab, creators of Second Life.
Personally, while this isn’t what I expected from ESC, I tend to think this could scratch a big itch for some companies. There are the obvious media brands (Showtime, NBC, aso) and big consumables (e.g. Coca-Cola, P&G, aso), but I could see some other players enter the arena now; especially from manufacturing. For example, Volkswagen has a strong community of enthusiasts and could probably do something pretty interesting with this. And $100K is a drop in the bucket for Apple (and might be interesting to see, considering the majority of virtual world solutions require Windows/ActiveX/IE). More importantly, from Nike to Patagonia to Hilfiger to … Threadless, I could see this being a useful service for the fashion industry. They’ve already made some serious progress in the 3D CAD/virtual PLM area this past year or so, and with all the MSM stories of people making money as Second Life fashion designers, I’m betting a few will take a shine to what ESC is offering. We’ll see.
Kudos to the artists for the avatars and the scenes. Boo to the management for wasting these people’s talent on crap that will not move the world.
Do you really need a second life when most people can barely manage their first life.
http://www.itsretarded.com
Look! It’s Google Lively, but branded so you get to have publicity rammed down your throat while you have pointless chats in pointless spaces with people who like exactly the same socks as you! Hurrah!
well, anything that makes the web more interactive, creative, fun and engaging is a step in the right direction!
but gosh, some people are still ignorant at what people can do in sl, for leaving such comments like this:
“Do you really need a second life when most people can barely manage their first life.”
and im sure those who think that virtual worlds are rubbish and is a waste of time hasn’t entirely explored its possibilities yet, or is too narrow minded to see.
evolve, people, evolve.
Experience the ‘virtual evolution’ as it occurs ! Join us in Second Life™ or on the web (www.metanomics.net) for live discussion broadcasts on Mondays at 12 noon Pacific - Metanomics - Business & Policy in Virtual Worlds
In September of 2007, Professor Robert Bloomfield,Cornell University, unveiled his new talk show, Metanomics, to TechCrunch. The concept of the show proposed an innovative goal – to discuss and dissect business and policy matters in the “Metaverse” of virtual worlds. Metanomics is primarily aired in the virtual world of Second Life; however, its scope is not limited to a single virtual realm and Professor Bloomfield is known to take the show to other worlds, such as Active Worlds, There, and Kaneva.
All these 2.5D Virtual “room” (can’t call them “world”) applications are just another one of those marketing led innovations.
Advertised as vitual worlds, technologically, they’re simple 3D chatrooms but in reality they’re nothing more than a fancy launchpad for advertising.
The marketers missed out on making too much money on the MySpace/Facebook social site scene and couldn’t get it together to make any money in a real immersive virtual world (despite the fact that many one man/woman bands seem to be able to) so they’re pretending that they’re building the next big thing but are in fact going backwards by building these god awful halfway house efforts.
That way they can fleece the big corporates by quoting innovation and total control of their environment whilst pretending the humble browser is viewing the scene (when in fact, they’re pretty much secretly downloading a ‘client’ in the background anyway).
If the application is good, people don’t care if they have to download a separate client. Just look at email. Why hasn’t that been totally subsumed into the browser? It’s because whilst webmail might be handy in a fix, it’s no match for a real Email application. So why are these web based 3D worlds any better than a standalone client?
The simple fact is, nobody is going to download a 3D client simply to get bombarded with adverts, so the marketers have come up with this 2.5D crud to sneak it past the poor unsuspecting user.