4 Articles for '3d'
- 2008/07/09 Cyworld 3D launches officially (3)
- 2008/04/30 Cyworld 3D about to enter closed beta
- 2008/04/24 Nurien's 3D world will blow you away (4)
- 2007/11/21 Cyworld to go 3D - Second life contender? (7)
Cyworld 3D, dubbed Cyworld Mini Life, officially launched. Cyworld Mini Life users (who are represented by 3-D avatars) can chat with others, purchase virtual items, and decorate their Mini Life rooms.
It seems all the existing minihompy users are given a new Mini Life, if they choose to have one. Cyworld Mini Life runs on a minihompy-sized screen, meaning the service doesn't use the full screen real estate as Second Life does.
For the time being, Cyworld Mini Life is Windows/IE only - it asks user to download and install an Active X program, meaning the service does not support Firefox or other non-IE browsers yet.
There's an onine video that introduces Cyworld 3D, which looks quite interesting - but I can't embed the video here as it's embeddable only on, guess where, Cyworld minihompy.
But the news of the Cyworld 3D suddenly became a tad less exciting, after a host of new announcements made overnight by Google and IBM. Google announced Lively, which lets site owners to design and embed their own 3-D virtual rooms; IBM and Second Life announced 3-D virtual world interoperability.
It seems all the existing minihompy users are given a new Mini Life, if they choose to have one. Cyworld Mini Life runs on a minihompy-sized screen, meaning the service doesn't use the full screen real estate as Second Life does.
For the time being, Cyworld Mini Life is Windows/IE only - it asks user to download and install an Active X program, meaning the service does not support Firefox or other non-IE browsers yet.
There's an onine video that introduces Cyworld 3D, which looks quite interesting - but I can't embed the video here as it's embeddable only on, guess where, Cyworld minihompy.
But the news of the Cyworld 3D suddenly became a tad less exciting, after a host of new announcements made overnight by Google and IBM. Google announced Lively, which lets site owners to design and embed their own 3-D virtual rooms; IBM and Second Life announced 3-D virtual world interoperability.
Cyworld "Minilife", aka Cyworld 3D, is about to start closed beta service. They are accepting up to 500,000 closed beta users (about 2% of their current user base of 22 million). Cyworld Minilife is a Second Life-like virtual 3D social network service, and is expected to launch in June this year. So far I'm not that impressed, but will deliver updates anyway.
Nurien Software finally announced they raised $15 million from investors in the US and China:
This is actually not the first time Tim raised a big round of venture financing from Silicon Valley investors. He played a key role in Realtime Worlds' $50 millon second round, which was announced not too long ago. The thing is, Tim and his company were initially part of Realtime Worlds, a UK/US-based game publisher, but they had spun out to found Nurien and went through a fresh round of venture funding.
People say it's nearly impossible for non-Valley companies (except for those in China and India maybe) to raise venture funding from the Valley investors. But maybe it is possible - here's the guy who did it, not once but twice.
Of course, Tim wouldn't have been able to raise $15 million without a killer product. What Nurien provides is, in essence, a 3D platform on which various activities, such as dancing, chatting, fashion shows, and gaming, can take place. Perhaps a video is worth a thousand words - Go check out their intro video, which will blow you away, and you'll immediately get what they are up to. (Cannot embed the video, so I'm instead providing the link.)
(Via Venturebeat) ...The company lets users create their own avatars and then socialize in a variety of topic areas. Its service has been in development for three years. Investors include Beijing-based Northern Light Venture Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and QiMing Venture Partners...I said "finally" because I knew about their funding from a while ago. Tim Kim, VP/co-founder of Nurien who pulled this deal after pitching to virtually all major VCs in the Valley (and many in China), is a friend of mine.
This is actually not the first time Tim raised a big round of venture financing from Silicon Valley investors. He played a key role in Realtime Worlds' $50 millon second round, which was announced not too long ago. The thing is, Tim and his company were initially part of Realtime Worlds, a UK/US-based game publisher, but they had spun out to found Nurien and went through a fresh round of venture funding.
People say it's nearly impossible for non-Valley companies (except for those in China and India maybe) to raise venture funding from the Valley investors. But maybe it is possible - here's the guy who did it, not once but twice.
Of course, Tim wouldn't have been able to raise $15 million without a killer product. What Nurien provides is, in essence, a 3D platform on which various activities, such as dancing, chatting, fashion shows, and gaming, can take place. Perhaps a video is worth a thousand words - Go check out their intro video, which will blow you away, and you'll immediately get what they are up to. (Cannot embed the video, so I'm instead providing the link.)
Virtual character created by Nurien Software
Digital Times (note: link in Korean) reports on the press conference that Cyworld is looking to change the current "mini room" and "mini me" features into a 3-D virtual space, something that will probably resemble Second Life. SK Communications does not hide the fact that they were inspired by Second Life when they came up with this notion of a 3-D Cyworld.
Mini room and Mini me features basically display a user's avatar in a virtual room. The virtual room can be decorated with virtual items purchased through Cyworld's item shop, where "Dotori" or acorns is the virtual currency - equivalent of Linden dollars in Second Life.
Shin Cho, the newly appointed co-CEO of SK Communications, said: "The key difference between Cyworld 3D and Second Life is that... Second Life mostly provides ready-made content, while Cyworld 3D will focus on providing user-created content." We might imagine Cyworld 3D users visiting someone else's 3D virtual room and watch the video content he or she had shot and uploaded there.
SK is planning to roll out Cyworld 3D early next year.
