Qwaq Launches New Avatar Services

With a focus on work instead of entertainment, Qwaq's first avatars were utilitarian--as CEO Greg Nuyens describes them “basically geometric, stylized shapes and boiled them down to the simplest things we care about” like location and attention. However, even for some business users need additional elements of expression. Toward that end, Qwaq is launching two new styles of avatars and services.

One adds a live video feed from webcams on the head of otherwise basic avatars; the second comes from a partnership with CyberExtruder to automatically generate face meshes from a single photo and create lifelike avatars. Both are in beta and both are set to launch in September.

“That’s kind of the point: you want all of this together; we don’t believe there’s a single answer for avatars,” said Nuyens. “Some people were over the moon for the video option, but, and I’m only part teasing, some people doing a meeting from their home office might not want video of their kids running around in the background and their hair sticking up.”

That ranges across different applications: in educational settings, some professors don’t want students focused on avatar customization, but in sales sessions and other meetings where relationships are key, says Nuyens, the more recognizable the face the better.

Qwaq allows for fully customized avatars, but the problem Nuyens has seen with those is that many enterprise applications are still in test phases. Users want easy access without the time and cost of creating custom 3D models. To meet that need, Qwaq Forums integrates directly with directory services to populate avatars with photos and identities from the existing database.

“A big part of our approach has been to say we want things to be pretty quick and leave people choices,” explained Nuyens. “We’re trying not to own every choice for people and give them a very directive environment, but the workflows, the tools, how you’re going to look, these are things you can quickly choose from preexisting choices. You don’t have to become a 3D programmer or live with existing choices we’ve made.”

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[yohanna]

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