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May 19, 2007

MyMiniLife: Your Embeddable Virtual World

Michael Arrington

45 comments »

MyMiniLife is a Flash based virtual world/social network. Users create and customize a character and then build out a virtual space, adding walls, floors, doors, windows, etc. Users can then add customized goods ranging from lamps to cannons to the space, and embed video or photo elements into items, or link to web pages (click on my moped in the embed for an example).

Some users create fantasy worlds; others create near-exactly duplicates of their actual homes or apartments. Other users can visit your home, walk around, view pictures and videos and then leave notes or chat real time with the owner. All items cost “money” to add to the world (and can later be sold to recoup cash) - and some of the premium items are very expensive relative to how much cash you are given to start the game. The site, however, is free to use and is ad supported. More money is accumulated via daily logins and other actions.

The graphics are fairly simple, but it was easy to customize my avatar and build out a simple space. Unlike more established competitors like Habbo Hotel and Cyworld, though MyMiniLife lets users embed their world via a Flash widget on any other website, such as their MySpace page.

I’ve embedded a quick test below. For more elaborate worlds, see here and here.

This is a hot space right now, and virtual world sites are gaining users at a quick pace. One competitor, Club Penguin, is rumored to be in acquisition discussions with Sony for $500 million or so.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 19th, 2007 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Search Engine WEB

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:01 pm

    For those who are creating near-duplicates of their homes, it would be nice to have the ability to add a Web Cam streaming live at the same time.

    Virtual World added to Real World.

  2. Allen Stern

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    Nice house Mike, love the cannon next to the dog. I wonder if we could make houses like the stars have on “Cribz”.

    What would be cool is to have say an apartment building or a neighborhood that you can move into.

  3. Michael Arrington

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    Allen - yeah, I was thinking that they should let people build out neighborhoods. All us tech bloggers could make our own little shangri la.

  4. Marshall Kirkpatrick

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    I tried to tell people it was uncomfortable in your house, what with the dog staring at you in the bathroom and all - but no one ever believed me before now! I’m kidding, my dog does that too. My god, the comments a person is willing to leave on a Saturday night.

  5. Allen Stern

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    Marshall - let’s see your SplashCast diggs before you pick on the house with only one wall.

    (LOL)

  6. Michael Arrington

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

    :-)

  7. Todd Jordan

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:45 pm

    I’m seeing this as one of those fun community things. Would be a great feature if one could link one’s mini home to someone else’s. There’d be a pad you could walk onto and be asked where to go.

    Thanks for the blog post review and the link.

  8. Parenting Blog

    May 19th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    Humm. This sounds like second life. I wonder if second life colones will pop up like the slew of Social Networks today ??

  9. Zaid

    May 19th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    I’d made a personal promise to resist the virtual-world-thing. But I couldn’t resist the temptation to click on the embed:(

    And now…what can I say. I’m totally into the cannon and the open toilet, lol.

    –Zaid

  10. Josh

    May 19th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    From the profile page “thanks for techcrunching us … also, we gave you more money ” Could it be that Michael Arrington sells his opinion for virtual currency? What a scoop!

    This kind of virtual homes has been one of CyWorld’s central features since the start. If done properly it can be a huge money earner.

  11. Don Wilson

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:03 pm

    These sites can be GREATLY improved. HabboHotel is probably the highest quality, but so much more can be improved upon it.

  12. Zao Yang

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:06 pm

    Well we want users to create cool homes, but allow the users to earn currency to continually come back. So based on the feedback, we permanently raised the default amount of money so people can create cool homes. So we’re not just bribing Michael Arrington ;) all users get the benefit.

  13. Zao Yang

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    well the issue w/ the majority of the sites is they were made in the dot com boom, so they needed to be fast so they couldn’t have really good graphics or use things like flash b/c it would slow down the user experience. That’s why cyworld was done in animated gifs and habbo done in shockwave

  14. virtualtimewaster

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:12 pm

    I’m sorry, but I think this type of site is a pointless waste of time. Here’s an idea…try doing things in real life instead of sitting at the computer all day.

  15. Andrew Johnson

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    News flash virtualtimewaster: what the heck are you doing wasting your time reading techcrunch?

    Anyways, definately moving in the right direction. This is probably what The Sims Online should have been. (And they even use a font that looks suspiciously similar to The Sims.)

  16. Michael Arrington

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    i just pimped the house out with some sweet stuff from my payoff for doing the post. Nice. I’m thinking of adding some walls soon, and I just realized that I’m building on water, not dirt. Oh well. I love my house.

  17. Jason

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

    Mike, it is not for tech bloggers, seems target Asian cuties, you should love some kind of Secondlife flash embedded.

  18. Zao Yang

    May 19th, 2007 at 10:47 pm

    to virtualtimewaster

    I think that’s the general idea ;)

  19. Allen Stern

    May 20th, 2007 at 12:33 am

    is that a pig next to the desk?

    and is that a ms. pac man game?

    why do you need a door if you have only one wall?

  20. Michael Arrington

    May 20th, 2007 at 1:15 am

    Its galaga, and the home is still under construction. I bought the pig because it was for sale and I had a ton of money to spend. mmmmmm bacon.

  21. N.Cauldwell

    May 20th, 2007 at 1:18 am

    Mike, no one will ever underwrite a house with a lake for carpet.

  22. VCMike

    May 20th, 2007 at 6:22 am

    Hey Zao — I am a fan of the category, would love to learn more about what you guys are doing. Gonna be in SoCal next week, too.

  23. Eamonn Smyth

    May 20th, 2007 at 6:56 am

    The great thing about flash and this style project is its like the good old days when you could have only dreamed what was possible if all the computers using your software were linked together.

    Like all seeds they start small and grow big. Are there any plans to open source?

    Would love to set my radio studios up virtually in this fashion, if interested contact me via my webpage.

    Good luck.:-)

  24. Derek

    May 20th, 2007 at 6:57 am

    This is a nice enhancement to the Cyworld Miniroom concept and is closing in on the Habbo Hotel model. A key question is what is the target market for this site? Is it teens and pre-teens or a more mature audience. The problem with all these Flash sites is that they all end up looking the same: cartoonish, sterile, and ultimately 2 dimensional. This is cute, but for anyone over 21 years old, it’s a curiosity, not a social network.

  25. Chris

    May 20th, 2007 at 8:21 am

    What has the Internet become? A place for zombies. If humans lives 5000 years. then maybe, perhaps, yes.

  26. Lillian Rosenberger

    May 20th, 2007 at 10:03 am

    you know a lot happens in the world no one really understands look at me i got hit by drunk driver and then while in hospital house burned along with business NEED HELP 9206 Derbyshire RD Richmond VA 23229 If anyone cares LET ME KNOW

  27. Zao Yang

    May 20th, 2007 at 10:20 am

    to VCMike: I didn’t find your email on your blog, so I’ll use this to respond. I would love to meet up, but actually I’m in silicon valley. The rest of the team are in japan, and champaign, and our sole investor is in chicago (we’re a virtual team).

    You probably read that I was in grad school, but I took a leave of absence to do this for about a year (cuz doing a startup plus grad school was to be too much). Anyway, if you’re in the silicon valley area send me an email and I’d love to meet up. The email is zaoyang At gmail Dot com

  28. Helen

    May 20th, 2007 at 10:39 am

    Sounds great,
    But i hope my world is a virtual world.

  29. Zao Yang

    May 20th, 2007 at 11:18 am

    to Eamonn: Maybe I’m a little slow, but I couldn’t find your email on your site. One of our next features is to add a music player into the house. We actually haven’t considered open sourcing it, but perhaps in the future (like 6 months down the line). We’d be interested in talking with you about the music station as well, it depends on what you want with it. Send me an email zaoyang At gmail Dot com

  30. Zao Yang

    May 20th, 2007 at 11:23 am

    to Derek: the main target population is to people that play the sims. Also, the problem with things on the web (why it looks cartoonish, sterile) is b/c of the limits of the browser. That’s why a lot of the more realistic looking systems (second life, active worlds) require a huge client download and install.

  31. Buxr

    May 20th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

    Not bad for a browser based game. Zao is right, the graphical limitations of the browser handicap this from ever competing with the big boys.

  32. sean percival

    May 20th, 2007 at 4:46 pm

    mike thanks for covering virtual worlds here, also agree this space is going to be huge in the future. Right night its clouded with too much Second Life hype.

    Making it embeddable is a great idea, if only it was more of a viewer so you could see avatars moving around in the embed as well.

  33. angelo

    May 21st, 2007 at 1:03 am

    this site is fun. and its not a waste of time compared to less creative things like watching tv or video games.

  34. Jenn

    May 21st, 2007 at 8:46 am

    I completely agree with Andrew. I was a Sims addict for awhile and these virtual houses seem to have the exact the same look and feel of the Sims. Wonder if this is just a coincidence?

  35. prodigiouswizard

    May 21st, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    now, if you could get some of these on facebook profiles, THEN you’d have a great shot of taking off. i’m pulling for ya :D

  36. Kerry

    May 29th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    I love the sims… but this is just a clone of CityPixel.com

    I’ll stick with Second Life….

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