Social Networks for Virtual World Avatars

 

There are a few new Virtual World conferences this time of year, and many companies are making announcements. Twinity is now open beta, so anyone can try it. Mycosm is now demoing at one conference in LA as it moves from alpha to beta. Red Light Center has a new section called Rude Virtual.

Anyways the announcement that I was interested in was the open beta of Myrl social network.

This is a social network designed primarily around virtual worlds, especially 3D virtual worlds. You can set up your account as your avatar. Here is my page.

Currently Myrl supports 19 different virtual worlds. You create one account in your favorite world, then in the “Switch To” box, you can add additional avatars for all the other virtual worlds you participate in. I added 7 others, all linked together. The profile details center around your virtual world characters not the real you.

You can get an attachment for SL or a download add-on for There if you want people to track your movements in those programs. You can also add You Tube Favorites, Flickr Feeds, or blog via RSS feed, so its low maintenance. If I blog on my web page, it shows up as a Myrl blog as well easily.

Koinup.com is another social network site working with virtual world IDs, Here’s my page. This site has more of a digg feel to it as you can add screenshots, videos, etc. and if they get popular they get featured. Koinup has been around for a little while now.

Finally, since I am on the topic, there is a fascinating article in the New York Times about the phenomenon of social networking in general, and how the mundane updates on Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we view relationships.

Check it out!