As a Kaneva beta tester, I've been poking around the new virtual world that has been getting some press attention for the way it bridges traditional 2D social networking with a 3D virtual world environment. (Note: I've actually been pointing to Kaneva as a potentially interesting metaverse contender for a few months now - for example, read through to the end of this January 19th MediaPost article.)
While most other testers have been sworn to secrecy under the private beta NDA, Kaneva recently cleared me to share the details of my beta experience. If you want a good, comprehensive description of what Kaneva is setting out to do, check out what Mark Wallace had to say a couple of weeks back. Mark wrote at length about how Kaneva allows users to easily port media (personal profile info, photos, audio, video) from their social network profile pages into the metaverse, but at the time even he had yet to go in-world. Now you can see it in action, right here.
2D/3D profile sharing. Interested in knowing who's driving the avatar you're chatting with? In Kaneva, you can click on any avatar to see the real person's Kaneva social network profile and check out their friends, too.
Your photos as virtual wall art. Residents can display the photos from their social network profiles in "frames" that adorn their in-world apartments.
Stream your video clips in world. Video screens are everywhere and residents can also pipe clips from their social network profiles directly to their screens in the virtual world. Here, one resident runs anime clips in his decked out living room.
Wanna see more? I've snapped 15 screenshots on total, showing everything from the Kaneva-run mall and nightclub complex as well as the commerce process, to some member apartments and some resident-run dance clubs. You can see them all on Flickr.
