Metaplace

[Backov]

http://www.metaplace.com/

Raph finally announced his new project, and it looks incredible.

Basically it sounds like a Web2.0 inspired open-platform version of Second Life. If they do this right, that's it for second life and this will be one hell of a platform. My head is already swimming with revenue-generating opportunities here.

[Mashew]

Wow. If MetaPlace is done correctly and well advertized. It has the capacity to rip SecondLife to shreds in a week. That sounds pretty amazing.

[lennard]

I'm a little dense sometimes - is that a joke?

They aren't advertising anything except that ability to do everything... kind of like the current set of web tools already allows you to do just, magically, really easy 'cause the current stuff is, you know, hard. Ta da. Everything will be easier, just you wait. Maybe it will be amazing but IMHO a sign in the middle of the road saying something amazing is coming isn't enough to make announcements about.

I like the dinosaur and alien though.

[Backov]

Well yes, except that they are supplying a tool chain and a backend to run it on.

Some of the shots they showed at Techcrunch looked pretty promising, and more important it really sounds like Raph gets it, which is pretty obvious is you read his blog.

I'm excited and optimistic.

[Musenik]

Two big issues not mentioned; at least I didn't see them mentioned...

1. Can you earn money as a builder? (ala Second Life)

2. How will age appropriateness be handled?

[zoombapup]

An MMO using web protocols. Sounds like an exercise in futility. Web protocols are pull technology mostly, not communication.

I like the idea of pulling data to support the system of course (horizontal scaling), but it just doesnt work (XML, HTML, Whatever) because technically none of these involve one person posting (in realtime mind you) to another.

I suppose if you drop the need for realtime interaction, you'll be ok, but frankly, I dont think thats as immersive.

The reason why nobody has done this before, is because its a dumb idea, not because it wasnt possible.

But I'm sure it'll get a load of press because its raph. Meh!

[Desktop Gaming]

An article about this has appeared on BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7002479.stm).

[whisperstorm]

An article on this has appeared in BoingBoing (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/19/metaplace-open-diy-v.html).

[Aldacron]

The BBC has posted a video of Raph demoing metaplace for them (http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7000000/newsid_7003400/7003496.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&asb=1&news=1&ms3=52). It requires RealPlayer. For those who don't have it and don't want to install it, it's also up on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZiB_JcRH_s&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emetaplace%2Einfo%2Fviewtop ic%2Ephp%3Ff%3D6%26t%3D20%26sid%3D535c24eac0c5af70 9e7caa3c0b95554d)

[whisperstorm]

For those of you interested, there is a very lively and rapidly growing community of folks chatting about metplace over at metaplace.info (http://metaplace.info/). Some of the folks from Areae are lurking/posting there as well.