Last May we wrote about a virtual world called MyMiniLife where you can construct and furnish virtual homes that look like those you’d find in The Sims, except smaller and more pixelated.
If this is your cup of tea, then perhaps you’ll be interested in a new MyMiniLife tool for importing real life objects into cyberspace. These items can be added to your own homes or shared with (i.e. sold to) other users. I’ve used it to import the Crunchies Award, shrinking it and yet making it life-size at the same time.
All that’s needed to import an object is a camera for taking four isometric shots, and a moderately functional photo editing application. A green screen is recommended, but who has one of those lying around? I found that you can do just fine without one if you have decent Photoshop skills. See the video demonstration at the bottom of this post to get an idea of the process.
MyMiniLife has been testing this feature for two months with beta users who have already uploaded 9,000 items. The company, which operates on angel funding, claims 750,000 users total and 9M page views per month.
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.
