Interview: Jeremy Snyder, Metaversum, EVP of Community & Operations

First (more or less) there were fantasy worlds.  Then broader social worlds took over the media, and now kids worlds seem to be dominating the start-up market. The coming year looks like it's bringing a whole host of mirror worlds. "I can't speak to what other people are doing or why, but we see a lot of potential in it and a lot of things that can be done with a mirror world," said Jeremy Snyder, EVP of Community & Operations for Metaversum, which is currently at work on its own mirror world, Twinity. "I think one of the really interesting things in it is watching how each of us approaches it differently. Each will have a different spin, just as if you look at Second Life versus There.com versus vSide versus anyone else. They each have different tweaks on things, and I’m sure you'll see the same out of mirror worlds. I think we're all trying to understand what the right combination is. "

"When you start from kind of a blank canvas, you have all these possibilities out there," Snyder continued. "When you start from a mirror world canvas like we are, you have a lot of possibilities out there as well, but you have a lot of questions of what you're going to bring with you and what you're going to leave behind and why. I'm 100% sure that there will be questions from customers, partners, and everybody as to why you brought this and not that. "

What About Twinity?

Unfortunately, Snyder couldn't talk about many of the features that he thinks will make Twinity stand out. Right now the world is in closed beta, but the company is shooting for a second quarter open beta to go public.

"What we're showing people is roughly 20% of what Twinity is going to be," explained Snyder. "The sneak preview is maybe a little bit dissatisfying, or leaves something to be desired, I should say."

As it is, Twinity is still an exciting idea. A thick client download world based on many third-party components (including BigWorld, SpeedTree, and MotionFX), Twinity aims to be a selective mirror of the real world. It has deep connections to the  real world, starting with a lobby based on a global map, but Twinity isn't meant to be a one-to-one re-creation.

"That's the most obvious connection to the real world: geographic correspondence between cities in the real world and cities in Twinity," said Snyder. "What you'll see right now in the beta is that not all of the spaces are user-created. We've created some on our own to show off our spaces and give people an idea of what they could do with Twinity with the apartments they've created or the clubs or whatever. But a lot of it is user created. When you go through the process of creating a place, you get to choose where in the world you want to set it."

Selective Mirroring

With user-generated content open, and set to be more open, the world obviously has the potential to move away from pure realism. Creativity, then, comes with some restrictions.

"Some of the other real-world correspondence stuff is with the avatars," said Snyder. "We've had a few questions from some of our early users interested in being furries or other things and were disappointed to find out they could only be humans in Twinity.  And, well that's just how it is. Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know. But the point of Twinity is to be a much more realistic experience."

But while restrictions set boundaries, they're still a little more liberal than the real world. Right now users can't move about outdoor spaces--only the indoor spaces are available--but eventually they'll be able to walk from apartment to apartment  in a city like Helsinki. They won't, though, want to walk from San Francisco to Helsinki. Instantaneous movement is in, but it's not  clear what else would be, like flying or hoverboarding.

"There are definitely some things you'll be able to do that are a little bit superhuman," said Snyder. "That's probably about all I can say about that right now."

Another feature that has been discussed of  Twinity is its economy, though. Metaversum is currently looking at a virtual currency, but Snyder says there has also been discussion around using a real-world currency as well. It seems appropriate for a mirror world, but it's not without its problems.

"First of all, the transaction sizes are usually so small that it becomes very difficult to process," he explained. "You look at the payment processing tools that are out there—PayPal and credit cards and so on—money gets more and more expensive the lower you go. When you accept payments of a dollar or less, you're generally losing 50% or more of that money to the processor. But then you have a practical question on an international level, and Twinity is definitely an international-oriented system: What currency are you going to use? Do you want to use Yen, dollars, Euros? Then exchanges on international eCommerce, you lose something to them as well on commission. Usually it's 1-2% international processing fee, and that's tough to manage."

With that in mind, Twinity also isn't about to begin selling real-world products. There are virtual goods already available, but Snyder isn't convinced that virtual worlds are ready to sell real goods.

"IUf any of us, being anyone in the industry, could figure out a good way to do it, I think we'd all love to have that business," he said. "I don't think we have any bold, new insights on how to crack that nut.  No matter how much there is in virtual goods, the real-world economy is much, much bigger. It's an order of magnitude difference. I'm not sure I see that happening right now."

Where Does Money Come From Then?

Snyder said Twinity isn't quite ready to talk about its plans for monetization yet, but the world seems primarily aimed at real-world value. Snyder wouldn't say if Metaversum is already in talks with advertisers, but that's a definite option.

"I think if you look at it from the standpoint of the number of media companies and advertising firms that are interested in doing things in virtual worlds, I think from their perspective it's a lot easier to reach out to a community of humans than it is to reach out to a community of furries," said Snyder.
"Even if you don't go through the steps of face generation, taking your real-world face and real-world body and putting that on an avatar, I think human interaction is more real. Human interaction is more valuable to people, certainly to media and advertising companies looking to spread their brand or promote things."

Along those lines, it sounds like Twinity has more in common with LinkedIn than MySpace. It's based on real identities and giving real-world connections to people, though that doesn't mean it's all business.

The world already allows for users to customize their interior spaces, adding playlists of videos or music,  for a creative outlet. It's just more realistic creativity than some worlds like Second Life allow.

"I think most people, if they're honest about it, they get a lot more value, not necessarily entertainment value, but sometimes entertainment value, but they generally get a lot more value out of real-world interactions than this anonymous escapist interactions," said Snyder.

What Next?

Twinity is already, even in the closed beta phase, looking international expansion. Last month it contracted with Pacific West to begin promotion in Singapore, and the company is looking at the North American market as well, though with no announced plans.

From a features standpoint, Snyder would only say that outdoor spaces are the next big thing, but he did add  that "there's some stuff being worked on on the backend and tested with a smaller group of people for user-generated content, imported items, and things like that from other 3D tools."

Among the common formats, Metaversum is looking to make Twinity compatible with COLLADA, which would give it ties to another mirror world with Google Earth and Google's SketchUp.

"It's not meant to be Google Maps with avatars," though. Snyder explained that "Google Maps would just give you the map where you could walk around and explore. In Twinity the land would certainly give you much more than that."

Metaversum is aiming to have something more available to the public by April, but as Snyder jokingly asked, "How many MMOs go to market on time? It'd be cool if we did that."