Active Worlds Embeds 3D Worlds in Facebook

Active Worlds announced today that they had launched the "Active Worlds 3D Avatar and World Explorer" application, allowing companies and developers to build virtual worlds on the Facebook platform. The company says the application is based on Internet Explorer and ActiveX from Microsoft to build on existing standards and to allow certain elements of the virtual worlds to interact with more traditional websites and Web 2.0 applications. "Since our Active Worlds technology continues to be standards driven, we feel this release sets a new milestone on 3D Internet implementation," said JP McCormick, chairman of Active Worlds, "The push is on for interoperability and a set of standards which will drive Virtual World technology into the future. We believe that many of these already exist. By continuing to enhance our already standards driven application we greatly increase our value to e- commerce, education, entertainment, and social networking sites, as well as our core business with Fortune 500 companies."

Active Worlds was present at the IBM standards meeting last month and confirmed its commitment there towards building out standards for virtual worlds. IBM is also one of the first companies to use the Active Worlds Facebook application. It's used to provide safe internal communications behind a firewall.

"IBM believes virtual worlds can be applied to limitless issues and opportunities in every industry, said Sandy Kearney, IBM Global Director 3D Internet and v-Business. "We are utilizing the Active Worlds platform because it provides IBM with a secure and very flexibile way to address the use of virtual worlds by our employees and our customers.

In August Active Worlds had about 1,000,000 hits to their universe server per day and  more than 70,000 registered “citizens." Facebook  has more than 51 million active users and has seen average of 200,000 new registrations per day since January 2007. Facebook has always seemed like a logical way to mainstream virtual worlds, and Scene Caster is taking steps in that direction, but this will certainly give Active Worlds access to an incredibly active, large user base. It'll be interesting to see if the Web 2.0 users will make the jump to Web 3D.

"Integrating the Embedded Virtual World control was trivially easy," said Robert Frederick, the developer of the Active Worlds Facebook application. "I saw a huge opportunity to bridge the social aspects of Facebook with the real- time interactivity and building components of the Active Worlds platform. For the first time, millions of Facebook users that install the app, http://apps.facebook.com/activeworlds, can interact and chat with each other, explore sweeping 3D landscapes and environments, and build their own virtual structures for others to enjoy."

But, like with IBM's project, it seems like a large part of the application is directed at business applications instead of the mainstream, popular use. But it sounds like it will still allow businesses to set up more open virtual worlds on their existing website.

"Activeworlds is committed to providing a cutting edge platform that works within the framework of existing standards for Internet technologies. This new release makes 3D Internet solutions available now to the Web 2.0 community," says Activeworlds CEO, Rick Noll. "There are tens of thousands of worlds on the Internet and now anyone with an Active Worlds can embed the experience directly in their webpage.  We are building towards a future where virtual world sites will be mainstream and realistically implemented."