A Peek At RocketOn
TechCrunch is reporting on San Francisco-based startup RocketOn, who's just raised $5 million in funding from the D.E. Shaw Group (in addition to $.8 million they already raised). They're developing a 2D world, currently in alpha, that's reportedly accessible across any site through an embeddable widget.
It sounds pretty much like a chat tool with avatars that can walk around, although they can enter themed chat areas that look like rooms. It's also got the personality-based functionality slate -- profiles, fame, items -- that seems to have become standard modus operandi for these products, especially when they're angled at kids -- in addition to a profanity blocker, TechCrunch calls it "fuzzy looking".
But TechCrunch also noticed the strangeness in targeting a web-based product like this at kids. The appeal in most kids' online worlds is that they're closed and fully moderated -- kids can't travel from the Webkinz world, for example, into an inappropriate area. But using widgets, of course, essentially means web-as-platform, and that's another can of worms.
The Alpha is closed, so there's no way to check it out for ourselves. But what's interesting is that more and more products seem to be departing the "virtual world" and heading for the web, either leveraging existing web-based social networks or adding game-like functionality or avatar-based interactivity to the regular old browser.
It's an interesting strategy as an experiment with principles of online interaction, but it's perhaps prudent to wonder how much longevity the idea really has. Consumers enjoy interactivity, but they also enjoy simplicity, and I'm sure a good many users wonder, "when can a web page just be a web page?" The internet plays such a huge functional role in our daily lives nowadays that it's hard to imagine that everyone wants to make it a game -- after all, isn't that what games and online worlds are for? Current trends promise, though, that the boundaries that separate digital media by definitions are softening, so it certainly remains to be seen.
[RocketOn Gets $5M For Embeddable Virtual Kids World | TechCrunch]
Comments
This sounds super cool! What a great idea! Can't wait!
Posted by: Audrey | February 13, 2008 2:46 PM
My daughter used their site last November (it was open for a while I think) and there was a focus on games and social interaction stuff. I always sit with her when she is on the internet so I can patrol the sites she is visiting and assess the creep factor. She seemed to really enjoy it and it seemed to be safe (at least as safe or safer that many of the other sites that she goes on). She installed the thing into her Facebook page and it didn't seem any less safe. What was interesting was that some of her friends also installed it because she installed it. I'm always on the lookout for fun and safe places for her to "play" and I'm hopeful they come back online soon!
Posted by: dorothy1968 | February 25, 2008 2:44 PM
If it can be as simple as a browser-based experience (rather than a huge download) , they have games and stuff to happen between the players and the phrase "parallel_virtual_worlds" [from the release] has some sort of real meaning then this idea can be huge. The implication (at least the way I read this coy release) is that this may somehow be tethered to browsing - think of the possibilities! Techcrunch posted an update in which the execs downplayed the widget - but its cool nonetheless. Damn...I wish I had thought of it
Posted by: ny_techie_tom | February 25, 2008 2:57 PM