Journeys Soft Launches to Public Alpha

Journeys has launched into a public alpha today, or as the company blog calls it, a "sandbox version" of the Flash-based mirror world where you can  choose a character and house, though not customize them beyond text descriptions; move between cities, houses and attractions, and land in six locations where you can move and chat; and send your character on trips while you're offline. I've built my house in my home of Austin, but I couldn't bring my avatar to Los Angeles for the Virtual Worlds Expo, so I settled for San Francisco instead. The world is mashed up from "Yahoo! Maps, Pictures from Flickr and more" and  looks like what I imagine it would be to walk a cartoon avatar around a Microsoft Photosynth environment.

You can land on a photo of a landmark or send your avatar on trips while you're away to receive travel tips, but the blogs hints that more may soon be on the way. "Journeys is still without any missions (although we highly recommend going on offline trips), games or other content tools that we planed to have in. It is also without any advertising (for now) :)."

The journeys are an odd twist. I don't know what to make of them yet, but they only take place while users are offline. I've sent my avatar on a journey to explore the shooting locations for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and he's meant to gather experience and send me travel tips along the way. It sees like a way to offer engagement away from the world itself, which may the goal for some advertisers, though it's not clear if Journeys is interested in selling out instead.

"It is also a great start for an experiential marketing tool for the travel industry (think trip sharing, promotions)," blogged the team.... "We are actively looking for ways to finance Journeys’ development and continue it. We are happy to look into partnerships, distribution and if you want to scoop the IP and team, let’s talk as well. Part of the reason we decided to open Journeys is our belief that sharing our project can support our development by feedbacks and interest."