Following Google’s’ Lively, it is now the Electric Sheep Company’s (ESC) turn to reveal their browser-based virtual world: WebFlock. WebFlock is completely Flash Based unlike Lively, and their business model is very different as well.
“WebFlock is an application for private-labeled Web-based virtual experiences. It provides a visually immersive environment for social interaction, media consumption and game play.”
Much like Active Worlds does, companies can host their own virtual worlds on the WebFlock platform, and customize their environment with chat, games, economies, keep track of registration etc. So instead of creating a single world for users to visit, the ESC instead rents the platform itself to its customers, charging them by ‘concurrent users’ inside their ‘worlds’. Other features of the WebFlock word include:
- Adobe Flash-based user interface; no downloads or custom plug-ins
- Highly scalable to 1,000’s of concurrent users with automated space-mirroring and load balancing
- Monthly subscription package includes software, maintenance, technical support, and hosting
The ESC earlier announced they had abandoned Second Life content development as their primary business model. Instead they focussed on the ‘sweet spot‘ in 2.5D virtual worlds - virtual environments in a combination of 2D and 3D visuals, running inside the browser instead of separate applications. With WebFlock they’ve put their money where their mouths are, back-up by their client Showtime with the television series ‘The L-Word’, the first to open their virtual environment in the WebFlock platform.
Posted on: July 18, 2008 | Share on:
Join the conversaton!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
nelly on 
ciera on
The Long Tail of Social Context | Digado said on July 28th
[...] The topic of the post is the recent flood of 3D virtual worlds running inside the browser (Lively/WebFlock), providing very little besides the option to ‘interact’ with other users through chat. [...]