A representative for Shawn Fanning called TechCrunch today to make it clear that the social networking site that the Napster founder plans to launch next year will indeed be compliant with World of Warcraft’s (WoW) terms of use.
BusinessWeek reported that Fanning, the founder of Napster and Snocap, is in the development stages for a new social networking site called Rupture. The site will have a WoW plugin so that players can network within Rupture directly from the game.
Early blogging on the subject speculated that Rupture might “run afoul of Warcraft’s terms of use.” Fanning’s representative insists that this isn’t the case and that Rupture is “absolutely consistent with World of Warcraft.”
Rupture will reportedly allow social networking from other games in addition to WoW.
We requested an interview with Fanning but he is not taking them until the site launches, which his rep could only say will be in the first half of next year. For now, visitors to the site can request additional information when it becomes available by providing their email, guild, and realm. Fanning told BusinessWeek he raised capital for the site from a group of investors including Ron Conway and Joi Ito.
Because I love Dos.
Blizzard, like other game companies, don’t like it when other people utilize things such as a stats feed. That would probably be the concern. But Blizzard, unlike other game companies, has been supportive of its fan base.
Arenanet > Blizzard on supporting it’s users. Not to mention they are the original Blizzard and have built a much better and more unique game.
A site just launched about a month ago with this same idea, its already live.
http://www.warcraftsocial.com
Just wondering why Michael did not post about edgeio’s purchase of http://www.aresmls.com/ - a web 1.0 company today?
http://www.inman.com/inmannews.aspx?ID=59656
Yeah I think Fanning should stick to cameo’s in movie’s and leave websites to people who know how and already have developed such ideas. This site launched last month.
Maybe Seth Green’s character in the “Italian Job” was right about accusing Fanning of stealing the Napster Idea!
Im not a big wow fan, actually never played it. Loved the South Park episode though, almost made me want to go out and buy the game!
I would assume that an already established base like that would love this though.
Rupture:
Main Entry: 1rup·ture
Pronunciation: ‘r&p(t)-sh&r
Function: noun
Definition:
1 : breach of peace or concord; specifically : open hostility or war between nations
2 a : the tearing apart of a tissue; b : hernia
3 : a breaking apart or the state of being broken apart
Good name for a social network. What, kickedinthenuts.com wasn’t available?
There’re too many SNS websites, I messed up myself there.
There’s already too much software out there. Why launch another product?
There are already too many model cars on the market. Why launch one more?
Go Rupture!
(I think it’s much bigger than being a service for online games. There’s so much left to explore; the meta SNS, for example)
Is the idea all about having an alternative BATTLE. net connection or rather what we called virtual L.A.N. network using peer to peer technogy. If that is really the case, we already have one that I am using it so often now. The software is called Hamachi. Feel free to check it out below.
The site add :- http://www.hamachi.cc/
Can any1 tell me what is his concept of idea is all about?
Facesofwow has been around a lot longer - warcraftsocial.com is basically the same thing. From what i’ve read, it sounds like Rupture is actually collecting the details about characters and my personal and guild raiding stats - as a long time gamer, I have no interest in just posting my photo up on some random site. However, if somebody is checking out my most recent stats and I have a pic and personal info behind it — thats interesting.
Wow, this is going to be so awesome. Thanks for posting about this man, I probably wouldn’t have found about it so soon.
WoW is a big market. He might be on to something.
I wasn’t aware that WoW even supported plugins. Is it a hack, or do they have an open API ?
I’m totally not a WoW player, but isn’t it reasonable to believe that by 1-2 years from now something else will be taking WoW’s place of dominance? I remember a few years back EVERYONE was playing Everclear … which doesn’t even seem to be on the radar anymore.
Seems like basing a social network around a single game is a little risky, although social networks probably have a pretty short half life now too, so I guess it’s just a matter of timing.
I guess I don’t understand how this is much different then some of the current Guild hosting solutions like http://www.guilduniverse.com. They already have an estabilshed base of guilds (over 13000 guilds). Not to mention it’s already monitized.
I wonder why Blizzard can’t just build this rupture-like feature into their exisiting game?
Natali’s first post on this mentioned that Rupture would be ad-supported, which may raise issues with the World of Warcraft ToS. Many MMORPG fan sites and news sites use Google AdSense to monetize their sites. AdSense will typically deliver ads related to the sale of WoW gold and other game assets at online exchanges such as IGE.
Real money trading (RMT) remains a sticky wicket in the MMO world. Such trading is commonplace, but technically violates the terms of service of many games. Since players are also split on RMT, (some are clearly buying and selling, while others object to it) some news sites have sworn off ad revenue from IGE and other market makers. Ten Ton Hammer and Warcry have done this … not sure about others.
Short of a partnering agreement (not going to happen) this won’t clear legal…and by the looks of things by the time they have it up warcraftsocial.com will have a commanding marketshare on this kind of thing…..although if it does go thru I can see rupture buying out these other sites for their player bases.
A good friend of mine is helping them test - I have not used it directly, from what I’ve seen warcraftsocial isn’t even in the same league. I think the problem is that the phrase “social network” is misleading. It seems that they have combined a whole range of features that fit well together - for example, the stats and ladder ranking system they are developing is something I have wanted for two years. They may have social networking features but in calling it a social network they are probably underselling their product — maybe they just don’t have a term for it yet.
A good friend of yours? Joi is that you? haha
“The site will have a WoW plugin so that players can network within Rupture directly from the game”
As anyone who ever wrote a “plugin” for World of Warcraft will tell you, it is impossible to interact directly from any addon that runs within the game to anything external outside of the game’s client (like file system or network). The game’s client caches any data the addon uses and stores it into the file system when the client terminates (and reads it upon client start).
The only way they can automatically transfer information to/from the WoW game client is by external utilities that users will have to run separately. It was done before by many addon developers and proved to be semi successful since most of the game’s ~7 million subscribers don’t care about addons and certainly don’t like running some separate 3rd utility outside of the game’s context.
Update on this:
As of yesterdays patch it looks like WOW pre-empted this effort by including a social utility tool:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com.....group.html
Not quite the same, but one wonders:
Why use this when people have VOIP (Ventrillo) and Skype as well?
PS: Im not sure why my prior post is now MIA
And another one that could rupture (lol) Rupture with MMO Social.
MMOSocial
yes i agree with you