Do you feel that your Facebook profile just isn’t a good enough representation of who you are? Does it feel a little… flat? Is AIM a bit too 2-dimensional for your socialization needs? You could always try interacting with people in real life, but if you’d prefer to stay behind the keyboard, you can look to Vivaty for a solution. Their product, called Vivaty Scenes, creates a 3D world for Facebook and AIM (with more social sites to come) in your browser. It’s kind of like The Sims meets real life. We’re sure this isn’t for everyone, but Vivaty has done some pretty cool things with technology to expand the possibilities for online communication.
Vivaty isn’t all fun and games; there has to be a business reason that they’re building this medium. If you’ve been looking at web startups for very long, you’ll probably guess that they’re going to leverage advertising in their 3D virtual world. According to TechCrunch, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Not only will there be obvious things like “videos on the in-room screen, posters, and billboards, virtual product placement,” but there will also be branded rooms that should be able to bring in some big money. There will also be virtual good for purchase in the Vivaty worlds, so that’s another area that can generate revenue. It’s good to know that there’s a plan to make that $9.4 million in venture capital funding that Vivaty has received look like a smart investment.
Speaking of Vivaty’s having $9.4 million in VC funding, we hope that means that they pay their interns. We don’t know, because we have very little information about internships at Vivaty. We came across a tweet (on Twitter) about how they’re looking for a new intern because their Summer Marketing intern had to go back to school. Neither Vivaty’s Blog nor Jobs page sheds any light on their internships. We’d imagine that they’re looking for another Marketing intern, but they’d probably love to hear from anyone who has an interest in what they’re doing, especially someone with significant 3D design and animation skills or a software development superstar. Vivaty is located in Menlo Park, CA, and we’d assume that they won’t allow you to intern via avatar, but you never know. You’re going to have to do the legwork on finding more information about interning with them, so reach out to them through e-mail at jobs@vivaty.com or on Twitter by tweeting @Vivaty.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Have you tried Vivaty Scenes? What did you think?
Do I Know Anyone at Vivaty? - Check LinkedIn | Check Facebook
Tags: animation, California, design, Internships, marketing, social networking, software development
thanks for posting, willy. our internship will give you a really good blend of product management and product marketing skills… and you’ll get to see the front lines of a start up in the web-meets-virtual world space. it’s $16/hour (part time OK) and we need more than 1! so if you’re interested, email me directly at hperry@vivaty.com and i can tell you more. — Heidi Perry
16 bucks an hour? That’s awesome pay for an internship. Hopefully some students will jump on this opportunity.