Aqros: Mobile Social Virtual Worlds Messenger
Dr. Yesha Sivan of Metaverse Labs let me know recently about one of his clients, Aqros, who is trying to connect virtual worlds to the real world with mobile SMS messaging. You can install Aqros on your phone and, for now, log in to Second Life, chat with neighbors, view your friends list, communicate with them, and teleport to different landmarks. Second Life is the only service available right now, but the company plans to expand to other virtual world with the eventual goal, said Sivan, of letting users communicate with and between their virtual communities.
The plan is to monetize the service with ads and premium services. While other mobile apps often sell the air time and share revenue, Aqros is more interested in exploring monetization opportunities that with the different virtual worlds.
There have been other services looking to connect virtual worlds to the real world through SMS or phone services and even more, recently, that are trying to bring the whole virtual world experience to a mobile handset.
"Aqros distinguishes itself by centering on the social connections between users (messaging and chat). This can be the key to mass adoption of the lower income user," said Sivan. "Aqros does not involve streaming a game into the mobile phone. This is important since streaming requires unlimited data plans which are expensive and few people have. It is believed that 3D gaming on mobile is not what users are after – they just want to stay in touch and chat (think of Aqros as the 'Second Life messenger')."
Important for that mainstream approach is that, unlike other services that stream the virtual world to the phone, Aqros doesn't need a 3G connection, which Sivan says are available to less than 15% of American cell users in their current phones.
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