Today's journey takes us to these worlds: Blue Mars, Twinity and something called Cooee [ku:'i], which "is a shout used in Australia, usually in the bush, to attract attention, find missing people, or indicate one's own location. When done correctly - loudly and shrilly - a call of "cooee" can carry over a considerable distance." source: wikipedia
Reminds me a bit of 'sooee' the call with rising intonation, used in the USA, especially in the south, for calling pigs.
In the U.K. their word for this barnyard activity is 'hooey'. In the USA to say something is hooey means it's unsubstantiated rubbish. Whether sooee, hooey or cooee, the Cooee site is the one we'll being with.
Club Cooee http://en.clubcooee.com/ is my least favorite of today's trio. Based in the German Rhineland in a city called Kaiserslautern, it is offered as a 3D chat community of Club Cooee, paired with the social music app www.djparty.fm. It is a spare design with not much to offer in terms of a first impression, although the founders have created a 3D chat community "where users can meet new friends from all over the world and chat, flirt, listen to music and play games with each other." I suppose if you're a teen or young adult with an eye, or ear, set on becoming a DJ (which is a huge 'thing' in Europe, and different than it is here in the USA), this site might offer you something. For a teaching platform, I give it a thumbs down, which might not be fair. There's something for everyone.
Next up, we have Twinity, www.twinity.com that is 'powered by real life'. Based on the press release dates offered on the site, it secured its funding in 2008 and by 2010 released this: "The 3D online social community Twinity, the virtual world based on real people and real cities, has the ribbon cutting for the opening of its second US metropolis: Virtual New York. People from all over the world can now visit and even live in the city online 24/7." With opening hooks like 'you can party with friends, dress up, go shopping, design your virtual apartment' to 'legal stuff' and 'be nice' on the Twinity Rules page, this world targets a young professional demographic with a penchant for virtual livin' in the city. It's a German company; the language is offered in Deutsch and English and many of the activities on the site are commemorating and re-creating events like the fall of the Berlin Wall. There are London, Singapore and NYC events as well. This is a clean, tidy little site and I suspect it appeals to a certain type of client. It has that organized, minimalist palette you'd expect from German developers.
Last up, we have Blue Mars, that is partnered with Avatar Reality, a Honolulu-based company. I liked this one for many reasons, even though I've never entered it with an avatar. Their physical home office is located across from Aloha Tower, (one of my haunts) which gave me a bit of a smile as it's the first site that I can link a real-life visualization to in my mind. "It is often compared to Second Life since both are virtual social worlds, both allowing user-created content. According to Jim Sink, CEO of Avatar Reality, "Blue Mars was inspired by a vision of the future when the power to terraform whole worlds is within our grasp. The name Blue Mars represents possibility and hope."source: wikipedia It is a virtual world that can meet many consumer needs, just Second Life. "BlueMars.com is the central hub for discovery, community, and user and developer account management. Everything from currency balances, friend lists, messaging, business intelligence, inventory, virtual land, search, shopping, and account information will be managed through the web site." www.bluemars.com It overlays avatars on what look like Google Map street scenes. Very cool....take a little tour:
Here's a demo of new Blue Mars Lite: How to Visit Virtual Linden Lab, released March 2013:
https://vimeo.com/27800951
Here's a screen shot of 'Bot Girl' from the demo video. See the clue that lets you know who Blue Mars is partnering up with?: (extra credit if you can tell without watching the video where she is)
http://www.lindenlab.com/releases/linden-lab-is-developing-the-next-generation-virtual-world
Sorry that I didn't figure out how to copy and paste the web links as hot links. I'll figure that out before my next post, which should be later this evening. My learning curve on blogging is speeding up a bit, but it's still slower than I'd like it to be.
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