A Quick Peek at IMVU
Basically the story of IMVU starts with There.
Will Harvey is the creator of both. He spent years building There, then left the company soon after they officially launched. According to Harvey, the vision of There was to become the “Metaverse”, but he realized that the internet itself is the Metaverse and that trying to be everyting for everybody is a bit too hard to achieve.
So he took the two most popular activities from There , shopping and chatting, and created IMVU, which pretty much does just those two things.
Originally IMVU was designed as an add on to other chat clients like AOL, but after much discussion, they found that most people prefer a seperate client. The full story of IMVU is told in Will Harvey’s own words at http://www.metaversesessions.com/ (look for the June 1 entry)
There is no walking around in IMVU. You join a chat and find a place to sit, then start typing. The program is free to download, but EVERYTHING costs money.
Want to get rid of that “Guest_” in front of your name? $7.95 Want access to adult content (or chat in the nude)? $19.95 Want the ability to try stuff on before you buy it? $19.95 Then there is the “Gold Pass” which apparently does nothing but costs $9.93.
Custom content is available and even encouraged. Many of the designers from There also design for IMVU. From a monetary stand point, most custom items sell for about $0.25 to $0.50 instead of the big bucks often spent in There.
This is the third program I have written about in as many days. From a “what can it do?” stand point it is the weakest of the three, and yet it is easily the most successful of the three because of custom content.
Apart from the chat client, there is also a MySpace like website with profile pages and an active forum. Its not just the program it is a community.
My IMVU Homepage (I’ve been a member for two years, but have not done much with it)
