Kaneva is a new social network that extends the concept of MySpace into a virtual world. Although you’ve been able to sign up for a 2D profile on Kaneva they recently opened the doors to their 3D world. The idea is that users can create personal profile pages in the 2D space, like MySpace, but also carry out the same personalization to their virtual world apartments.
The social networking site is chock full of all of MySpace’s main features: friends, photos, videos, messages, groups, and personal blogs. Kaneva also gives you control over what your home site and profile look like, using an AJAX editor to drop modules into the page. If you really feel like replicating your MySpace’s horrid layout, you can also dress your profile in straight CSS. Here’s and example profile. Unlike MySpace, Kaneva also includes a voting system, called “raves”, to mark the best profiles, groups, photos, and videos.
The virtual world has a kind of Sims or There.com look to it. The architecture of the world is based on warping to different public locations (mall, club…) and your personal apartment. Goods are purchased with a virtual currency. The site gives you some basic hair, color, body, and shape customizations for you avatar, but still has a way to go in order to catch up with the more established SecondLife and There. Your personal apartment serves as your “3D profile”, which you can decorate and use to host parties.
However, the really interesting part is how Kaneva ties together their 2D and 3D worlds. Users can not only decorate their apartment with TVs and photo frames, but also fill those items with content from the site so that you could have your virtual friends over to watch your favorite viral video (click on the screen shot above and note the music video playing in the background). Groups created on Kaneva’s site can carry their meetings out in the virtual world. Kaneva is also working on a quest engine to incorporate games into the world, which will be essential to its success. Currently you can only chat, dress up, and do some basic animations, which is not enough to contend with the alternatives of just chatting online or the more complex game of dress-up SecondLife suppots.
Kaneva gives a good twist on social networking, drawing in the younger, non-gamer MySpace crowd into virtual worlds. However, they still have a lot of room to catch up with the established virtual worlds.
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Too bad their 3D interface is only supported on XP. I’ll have to wait for a Linux version.
Wow. Didn’t see this one coming.
They might have a better interface, more features, and a bigger concept — but how will get get new users and yoink some of myspace/facebook/friendster/xanga ’s?
I’m sure some designer-minded people would really dig the house/apartment/room feature though.
This looks like an exceptionally well done site. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t use the 3D on my mac but maybe some day in the future.
Very professional and I wish you guys all the best with it. I might even actually try to maintain a profile there
Didn’t work. Sorry!!
This is waste of time
Is this what the world has come to? Does the real world suck so badly that you have to turn to a fantasy world and online friends? Have people lost the ability to open their door, walk outside, and embrace something more than just a bunch of 1s and 0s?
I at first thought Web 2.0 was interesting idea, but now it’s starting to look like a bunch of crap. Do you want to know why kids shootup schools or try to kill themselves? It’s because services like this remove them so far from reality than anytime they actually have to deal with reality, they freak out. When people freak out, they do irrational things.
All of these programmers should take their skills and apply it to useful projects. Do I know what those useful projects are? I have a degree in finance, so my useful projects are trading algorithms and exotic derivative pricing formulas. Are my projects useful? They’re useful in risk management.
To all of the adults who wonder why the youth behave the way they do, here is your answer: You have distorted reality for them by developing crap, crap in the form of fictitious worlds and online friends. Use your skills for something useful.
I just visited this site. This site consumed a lot of my PC’s resources.
Cool idea, but still depressing a little. I use MySpace to send messages and lurk around a little, but I don’t know when I’m going to want to meet up and watch YouTube through my PC monitor on a virtual monitor in a website. The fact that I have to be ‘present’ to take part in a lot of these things makes it a huge time commitment and probably not a choice I’ll make.
Still really cool as a technology. I do think it’s kind of funny how much grief MySpace gets for looking like garbage, and every other ’social’ site uses roughly the same profile layout.
hat
it just not work on slow PC connection like mine
Sign-up to Kaneva and within five minutes you’ll receive a zillion and one ‘Raves’ from other members expecting you to rave them back. It’s at this point you’ll dive for the uncheck ‘receive email updates’ box.
I love rating systems, but the Kaneva developers have implemented a system that is completely arbitrary; raves have no relevance to a transaction in the environment, and as such members rave each other for the sake of receiving a rave back.
@Brent R - I think you’re misplacing the blame in typical handwring msm fashion. I clobbered a chunk of my youth playing Populous (who remembers that?), Civilization, and Sim City - and managed to turn out OK.
That being said, I still agree that SL, there.com, and this are goofy stuff. Does anyone need/want to invite vitual friends to their dorky virtual appartment to watch the numa numa guy? Just send them the youtube link already. There’s a million and one communication channels already.
Perhaps I’m just comfortable expressing my personality in my communication and don’t feel the need to do so by customizing the medium.
http://slantt.net/news/techcru.....3d-friends
Agreed, dreadsword.
Brent, please get clue:
1)The Coumbine HS massacre happened in ‘99 before there were any social networking sites, AFAIK. I’m no expert on school shooting incidents, but I’m sure there were others prior.
2)”Web 2.0″ is not just about social networking sites for the kiddies. There are many other practical/ business uses for the latest web technologies (note Cisco’s recent acquisitions).
I have never had a profile on any social network site or SL b/c it is just not of any interest. However, many companies are making a good show and providing programmers with gainful employment to use their web programming skills. Your “useful projects” are no better than their “useful projects”, get over yourself.
Good article.
Much better experience (and technology + IP) @ http://www.3b.net (social networking+ecommerce). Firefox and IE enabled so can toggle back and forth b/w the 2D and 3D web. Any 2D webpage can be regenerated into 3D.
Good article.
Much better experience (and technology + IP) @ http://www.3b.net (social networking+ecommerce). Firefox and IE enabled so can toggle back and forth b/w the 2D and 3D web. Any 2D webpage can be regenerated into 3D.
Interesting. Will probably get the teen/young adult audience. But doubt its going to hit it big in the general populace.
Good article. Thanks for sharing.
IMHO, much better experience (and technology + IP) @ http://www.3b.net (social networking+ecommerce). Firefox and IE enabled so can toggle back and forth b/w the 2D and 3D web. Any 2D webpage can be regenerated into 3D.
yawn–better, faster, cheaper… and me too, yawn, yawn.
Sorry to be so negative but these sort of sites/ ideas are getting to me.
The word “bespoke” does not mean what you think it does.
http://www.audiocdcloner.com
After registering on the site, I had to download a 2 meg Windows executable to get the full 3D experience. Ok, fine, let’s give it a go.
Imagine my surprise when the installed component then tried to download further 160 (!) megabytes of data which would have taken further 90 minutes on my broadband connection.
What a great way to attract new customers!
My cousin and I have been in the process of creating something that utilizes some of the same 3D aspects of this without focusing on the “social” side of things and finding a way to bring these cool technologies into a platform that would benefit the professional Web 2.0 user. This is actually my first time hearing about Kaneva, so it’s funny that some of our development ideas coincide with what Kaneva is doing. If you’re looking for something that works on every system, mixes 3D and 2D with better graphics, with a more organized profile scheme, and doesn’t require a download to use, check out http://www.ourtbeat.com. This is a professional networking site created by artists for artists. We cater to all forms of art and art appreciation. We aren’t some corporation with an agenda, we are two young Seattle based artists, who are recruiting more artists, to create an online promotional platform that is both organized and professional while supplying its members with an interactive 3D experience to network and cultivate their creative selves. Web 2.0 is a fantastic development in technology, and if harnessed properly, can provide artists and entrepreneurs with cutting edge means of housing an interactive portfolio. This combined with multiple promotional opportunities within a 3D network of colleagues, artist forums, and galleries to view and sell work can take Web 2.0 to a step beyond the social hoopla of it all by simply providing virtual experiences that lead to real life success. Thus encouraging artists to focus on promoting their first life rather than an alter ego second life.
We are currently recruiting beta testers for our private beta launch. Everyone who has commented on this post has valid opinions that would be greatly appreciated within ourtbeat. If you’re an artist, someone who appreciates art, or someone who is interested in the creative evolution of social networks, I strongly encourage you to check out our website and sign up to become a beta tester. Ourtbeat is currently under construction, but we have a splash page up acting as a place holder right now. On that splash page, you can get more information about us, sing up for beta, and spread the word to friends. As a beta tester, you will get your run of the site as it’s being created. This gives you the opportunity to tell us your likes and dislikes as well as what you want out of the site!
We don’t want to create a system where people who don’t have the time to download our graphics can’t view your profile. Professional and social networks are all about making connections and promoting one’s work and self. At ourtbeat, we strive to make that as easy as possible while providing it’s members with all the tools necessary to develop a strong and successful online presence.
Please email me with any questions or if you would like to further this discussion!
amy@ourtbeat.com
mat
wat yall doin in da neighborhood
wow. i wanna try.