SLUniverse Forums - View Single Post - Electric Sheep Releases New Browser-Based Virtual World: WebFlock

Quiplash · 07-17-2008, 04:40 PM

Full details here:

More Browser-Based Virtual Worlds: The Electric Sheep Company Releases WebFlock

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.

....

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.

07-17-2008, 04:40 PM	#1 (permalink)
Quiplash aka Dances With Skulls Going, going... Goth! Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: in a box under the freeway Posts: 1,090 My Mood:	Electric Sheep Releases New Browser-Based Virtual World: WebFlock Full details here: More Browser-Based Virtual Worlds: The Electric Sheep Company Releases WebFlock 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. .... 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.