Virtual Worlds Forum

One of the panel sessions at last week's Virtual Worlds Forum Europe conference concerned the increasing convergence between virtual worlds and social networking. Hey presto: a week later, Activeworlds has announced that it's releasing a Facebook application based on its virtual worlds platform. It's called the 'Active Worlds 3D Avatar and World Explorer' application, and is available now. "I saw an opportunity to bridge the social aspects of Facebook with the real-time interactivity and building components of the Active Worlds platform," says Robert Frederick, who developed the app. "For the first time, millions of Facebook users that install the app can interact and chat with each other, explore sweeping 3D landscapes and environments, and build their own virtual structures for others to enjoy." IBM is already using the Facebook app, according to Activeworlds. It's an exciting development, although there are currently technical limitations (you need to be using Internet Explorer to use it, which is bad news for the increasing base of Firefox users). What would be really exciting is if 3D worlds can strongly leverage the social aspects of these sites, as people check out the 3D worlds that their Facebook friends have visited. Activeworlds Facebook application (and here's the press release)