Kaneva's impending beta

Chris Klaus and team are doing the promotion tour.

3pointD:

"the demo reel I saw showed a system that seemed to combine the expressive power of MySpace with the social power of There.com, and which was a nice way to bridge the 2D and 3D online worlds without worrying too much about things like “immersion.”

The way it works is this: Anything you upload to your 2D Kaneva site can then be easily displayed in the 3D world. When you join the 3D world you automatically get a small apartment (which can be upgraded, if you like). You can kit it out with furniture and things like picture frames and televisions, and can easily link 2D media content in the 3D world. Mount a television on your wall, right-click it, choose one of the videos you’ve uploaded to your 2D site, and presto, it’s playing in your apartment."

GigaGames:

"Another clever feature: when users create a group (say anime fans, or Obama supporters, or whatever), they get a space of their own to hang out in. Expected revenue model will be a Kaneva virtual currency that users can buy with real cash. Expected headaches (in my experience) will likely come from the buying and selling of that currency by clever entrepreneurs in a way that’ll cause social disruptions and hyper-competitiveness that drives many away.