twinity

Twinity: 100K users and Mac version on the horizon

December 14, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

Twinity has just in the past hour passed one hundred thousand registrations. That was the reason I headed to Twinity’s website. What caught my attention were four new words:

It’s obviously unclear on how progressed Twinity are with Mac development (something we’ve now sought clarification on), but if things are progressing in that regard, kudos to Metaversum. That, and the regular growth in registrations bodes well for Twinity at this stage.

Update: I’ve misinterpreted the message on 100K – the actual number is 95K and “approaching 100K” – apologies.

Filed Under: Alternatives, General News Tagged With: twinity

Twinity’s momentum continues

December 2, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

We’ve followed the development of mirror virtual world Twinity closely, and even questioned Twinity’s purpose. More than eighty thousand people have now registered to use Twinity – it’ll be interesting to see how much transparency there’ll be on active users into the future. Even on Second Life’s benchmark of roughly ten percent active versus registered, that’s a solid foundation.

Other highlights for Twinity in the last week or two:

- The listings guide used for the real-world German capital, zitty, is now in virtual Berlin, It includes a new event series, the zitty Readers Lounge, broadcast zitty’s 3D presence.

- A real-world German tourism / image campaign titled ‘be Berlin‘ has migrated to Twinity “to advertise the German capital to an international target group”.

- A strategic partnership has been signed with Bigpoint, a browser-based games company. Bigpoint will be using Twinity as a promotional platform for their own products.

- A virtual Christmas Market is launching at the Brandenburg Gate in virtual Berlin, starting at beginning of December.

It’s a fairly stark contrast to recent failure Google Lively – there’s significant European and Asian business interest in Twinity. Mirror worlds are are comfortable exploratory option for business and government and this seems to be driving the momentum to date. The big challenge is continuing to build an engaged base of users in an environment of open-source content creation options and some degree of cynicism toward overt brand promotion in virtual worlds.

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: twinity

Second Life servers to hit Singapore?

October 27, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

According to the Straits Times, Singapore-based Second Life servers are on their way to Singapore within six months. This is potentially good news for Australian users, although the news would be a lot better if it were Australian servers being announced.

Given the growing focus on Twinity in Singapore, Linden Lab need to be making some strategic moves in South-East Asia. Japan and Australia are the only two countries in the region that make the top twenty for active Second Life users, so there’s plenty of ground to be made up.

Of course, the story could be based on information with a level of veracity matching the ‘real soon now’ claim made by Linden Lab nearly 18 months ago in regard to Australian servers.

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: lindenlab, singapore, twinity

Twinity passes 50K beta users

October 25, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

According to the indefatigable Andrew Peters, mirror world Twinity has reached the landmark of fifty thousand beta users.

That’s certainly a good critical mass of users, and it comes on top of a big week for Twinity. The Singapore Government has awarded funding via its Media Development Office to Twinity developers Metaversum. The funds are to create a virtual Singapore with geo-tagging and geo-located media streaming. It’s certainly a show of faith in Twinity.

We’d love to hear from any Australian users that make up those fifty thousand beta-testers. How are you finding it so far?

Filed Under: Alternatives, General News Tagged With: twinity

Twinity moves to public beta

September 7, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

Metaversum have moved Twinity to the next stage of it’s development, announcing its public beta phase. A media event was held in Germany with Berlin’s Mayor Klaus Wowereit, to formally open virtual Berlin. Wowereit was even presented with a key to the virtual city.

Jochen Hummel, CEO of Metaversum remains upbeat on Twinity’s development: “With the launch of our public beta phase, we have laid the foundation for Twinity’s international rollout.”

You can sign for the beta program here.

Filed Under: Alternatives, General News Tagged With: twinity

Berlin – live in Twinity

July 13, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

Berlin’s Hackescher Markt is the latest addition to the mirror world Twinity.

According to Metaversum, this is the first time that Berlin has been mirrored within a virtual world – the
Hackescher Markt district comes in at over six square kilometers of area in the real world. Twinity’s version has shops, galleries, bars, and clubs that all exist in the real Berlin.

You can still register for the current private beta phase.

Filed Under: Alternatives, General News Tagged With: twinity