Vivaty, a browser-based virtual world, has added support for Firefox, as well as adding new 'scenes' and more integration with Facebook's newsfeed. Vivaty is designed to enable users to maintain a 3D web presence, in much the same way as they currently might keep a personal website or social networking profile. Vivaty is integrated into 3rd party social networking websites, most notably as a Facebook application, giving them useful scope for viral growth on top of a pre-existing social graph.
They have launched the first 'social scene', a professionally designed public area, as opposed to the user designed private areas. This is a good step; anything which enhances the sense of community in the Vivaty virtual world will help keep users. It also begins to make it more obviously a single virtual world, rather than a series of loosely connected private spaces, and the sense of a world being a destination is important.
Facebook applications like Vivaty thrive on the newsfeed, which is why it is no surprise they are seeking to integrate with it more. For the few non-Facebookers, the newsfeed is a stream of reports on the activities of all of your friends, such as adding a photo, application or performing a task using an application. In other words, each time they publish in the newsfeed, they receive free advertising to potentially all of that user's friends. Specifically, it is the gift system which has been added. This is smart, because Facebook users as a whole are already used to the concept of virtual gifts (Facebook has its own microtransaction gift application), and so would be likely to click through.
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