Vivaty combines social networking, virtual worlds

Both sociable networking sites and virtual worlds have grown popular over the past few years, but they each have their disadvantages. Could these be overcome by combine the two? California-based start-up company Vivaty hopes to find out. Presently in buck private beta, it offering users a virtual room of their own.

From a certain perspective, neither virtual human race nor sociable networking sites are quite as "sociable" as they could be. Most sociable networking sites, for illustration, are clearly two-dimensional experiences. You have a profile page; friends can leave you email; you can chat if you both happen to be online at the same time (although your chat may be limited to just the two of you, and you might or might not be able to use a mike or web cam); you might be able to post mental image and at least links to audio or video. It's nice, but it doesn't give you the sociable experience of being at a party and mix with a lot of people.

Virtual human race give you at least a simulated experience of going to different "locations," meeting people, shopping, and doing things. These can be as bare bones as land of abhorrence, renowned for its stick fig art and truly horrible puns (you are normally sent on your first adventures by person called the Toot Old World oriole) through basswood Lab's well-known Second Life. One of the most popular, of course of study, is World of Warcraft.

Many of these virtual worlds exist to allow their participant to complete quests and grow more mighty, while others are more free form. They can be great fun, but how well do you truly get to know that 20th-level warrior in your guild? Strangely, this kind of "face to face" interaction makes it easier to put on a mask. Possibly most damning, though, is the fact that you must download unwieldy software onto your computer before you can participate in the virtual world, and pay a subscription fee.

Vivaty is taking a different approach that combines both of these ideas. According to Eric Eldon, writing for Venture Beat, "It wants to be the first to offer sophisticated features - including 3D life such as you'd find in Second Life, but also chat, and the ability to post video and link with rooms elsewhere on the Web - all within a browser. And also accessible on any web page." This aspect, at least, is fairly unusual, if not unique, and deserves a second look.