ExitReality Turns Social Network Profiles Into 3D Spaces
Duncan Riley
40 comments »
Exit Reality from Duncan Riley on Vimeo.
ExitReality promises to transform the social networking experience by offering virtual versions of every social network site profile. I caught up with CTO Danny Stefanic and CEO Dean Jones today for a walkthrough, video above.
The London, UK headquartered (the dev team, founder and CEO are in Australia) startup is pitching its product as an interactive value add for any social networking site. Each space is created on the fly so that every social networking profile has a 3D Space in ExitReality, even if the profiles owner doesn’t have an account there. When the service launches later this year users will be free to visit any virtual representation of a social networking profile without the need to register, but registration will be required for things like chat and customizing a personal space.
ExitReality gives social networking sites the ability to advertise to their users with the 3D space, with CEO Dean Jones telling me that they see the service as a value add for social networks. They didn’t mention any deals in place with social networking sites, but did admit to being in discussions with some sites, although they declined to name them.
Very very interesting…
Great staff! Very interesting!
now this is cool this brings me back when internet 3-D worlds first kicked off in 96′. Well i can’t wait till i login to a virtual twitter and people get to see you follow them and every body can reply to each other ..really nice im having visions..
Cool, Cool, Cool
Exciting Stuff, Where do we sign up for beta testing….
Count me in, in, in.
@ Miltski.
You can sign up for the Beta program at our website… http://www.exitreality.com.
DJ.
I know these guys I met up with them in Melbourne, they are very switched on people. I have been waiting for this for a while should be great!
It’ll be very interesting to see where this heads and what opportunities there are for advertising to further connect with audiences.
I will be keen to see how the technology is shaped by the user. Could be the next big thing
Second Life also experimenting on 3DVsystems to enhance the feature.
Hey Duncan, great post, if you have their London details ping them to me so I can go meet’em. Thanks!
We have also just now launched a blog. Interested users can go there for regular updates in the lead up to launch… and of course provide any feedback/comments directly to us.
http://blog.exitreality.com
Our first post includes a few images that readers of this article may find interesting…
We have also just now launched a blog. Interested users can go there for regular updates in the lead up to launch… and of course provide any feedback/comments directly to us.
http://blog.exitreality.com
Our first post includes a few images that readers of this article may find interesting.
Does anyone know if it’s a downloadable client? Java applet/webstart? or Shockwave?
@chat room guy
Yes, it’s a fully self contained downloadable (3.5mb) client plug-in for ff and ie. It does not require any auxilary packages/libraries such as java, .net or shockwave.
Congrats! Your products is fun and interactive and can reach various audiences which makes it unique and extremely enticing. Go Dean!!!
-JM
Plus pretty cool I saw it way back when on your iphone…way to go!
Not to be overly negative however, am I the only one that thinks this is a stupid idea?
I am a very connected social user however I want my information to work for me in a way that will gain me exposure, business, etc. What marketable use will this serve besides the initial ‘wow, I just made an avatar of myself’?
This thing is probably the greatest threat facing Facebook today. Every VC should be trying to get a piece of this.
bob wyman
I think this is one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time… until some actually tried to do it. Vert reminiscent of Second Life, not that that’s a bad thing: look at how popular that became.
That said I can’t stand the experience of MySpace in 2D, I can’t image a third dimension would make it any prettier!
I have an S & M club and website. Will it work for that? It would be great to have slaves walking around getting virtual whippings. I’d like to whip dean jones’ ass, bend him over my lap…
My initial reaction was, why would anyone want to waste time navigating round their and their friends profiles in this way. Then when they talked about how it could be used to stage parties I thought it was a wind up. They seem pretty switched on though so no doubt they have grander plans but for now I think I’ll stick to parties with real beer and real women.
I’m with the few here who think this is a terrible idea. If more companies want to throw their money in the “make the internet 3D” black hole, I welcome it - less competition for startups trying to do things that are actually useful.
3D is fun, but the internet works fairly well right now in 2D. It could use some improvements, but every aspect of splitting content up into a 3D world makes it a less efficient way to view that content. Consider: I can grok an entire myspace profile in a few seconds (provided it has actually loaded, but that’s another issue) - I can glance at style, colors, friends, interests, etc. Sometimes that’s all I need. So what if, instead of that, I have to actually “walk” from screen to screen, trying to read profile info… I just don’t get it.
I think this is another occasion of making a product for a target audience nobody personally knows. This should go into the bucket of “late to the ’social network’ party and trying to come up with an idea that sounds ‘cool’ to cash in.”
Ok for all you geeks out there that have no clue of how far this technology can grow let me break it down. For Years we have been inputing all the information into the website. Now with Rss Feeds Information is Automated. Internet Like everything else, starts out in a 2-D world.
My point is Besides Myspace Or FaceBook. Imagine 2 years from now when they made a Virtual Walk In Place Tred machine that you can Turn On put some glasses on and Now your In a 3-D Bestbuy Online Picking out your items to be delivered to the house by Tomorrow or faster. In the Bestbuy store you walk around just like in the store and instead of annoying workers that have no clue about the product there is a review button on all products to a recent blog or qualified review.
Not to mention If you have a website with many pages in 2-D enviorment you have to follow the rabbit down the hole meaning page after page after page till you find what you want on the website. Switch it to 3-D and now all the rooms are in one room and you just pick that room and now your on that page.
The social networks are only natural to experiment with because there is no inputing information into it its already Automated.
@anonymous coward thanks for your feedback.
The main purpose of this platform is not to do things in 3D that you can already do well in 2D… so reading a text heavy profile will always be done better in 2D than in 3D (which is allowed for BTW.)
Where this technology will come into its own is in helping people do things that provide a better or more fun experience in a 3D environment or make sense to be done in an environment where you can ’see’ other users also visiting the same place at that time.
For some people that might be watching a 3D plasma TV with several of their friends… or being able to chat to a large group of people and while doing so be able to see them and interact with them (essentially providing a more immersive experience.) As the popularity of 3D chat alone has shown, there are a lot of people that may find this particular part interesting.
Ultimately though we see the showing of 2D social network profiles in 3D as a catalyst to people then coming up with ways to do things within the new environment specifically built for 3D. This could include of course making some 2D experiences better or different in 3D (and chat would appear to be a good fit for that) or developing new things that make more sense to be represented in 3D.
I think we are seeing a natural re-birth here from 2d to 3d
anyone that remembers the web in what I like to call ZeroD (yes screens of ASCII) will remember green screen monitors, telnetting, ftping and to a point, browsing bulletin boards … At the time, it was ace, wonderful, exciting etc etc ..
then the browser was born and we entered a true 2d world..
3d … Its Evolution
I dunno, judging from the website I can’t see this being a very pleasant experience at all. They’re obviously not web guys and it shows in their site (which doesn’t validate at all!).
Definitely should invest in a solid web design studio!
I dunno, kinda looks like 3D MySpace, and that’s not a compliment.
This is clearly the most inspired, most creative, and most revolutionary business idea since 3D Mailbox.
I think this looks absolutely amazing. The fact that your profile automatically becomes a 3D space … and then it looks like you can drag and drop objects to decorate. It’s 3D for the masses
We walk, talk, look and communicate in 3D. ExitReality seems be be the natural progression for web communication and I am sure it will expand from the social networks to the way we will do it on every web site.
For the younger generation that does not have to “unlearn” 2D, this will be a powerful and engaging tool.
Those doubters - get with the program. 3d will have some great practical applications. When I visit a strange city, I won’t look at a map, I’ll look at a 3d relpica so I’ll be able to recognise the cafe I’m meeting a friend, and I’ll recognise how to get there. People who can’t get a handle on the net (and there is a lot of them), won’t have to fear going on the net because in 3d, it will be just like moving around in the real world.
If ExitReality is the catalyst to turn the net into 3d by starting with facebook and the social networks - bring to on. And if it can be done with the push of a button AMAZING! (beleive it when I see it though).
this looks like a Vivaty killer.