Exit SecondLife… Enter Nurien

Tuesday, 29 July 2008
BMW are leaving Second Life. Munich Express (the Second Life avatar of Achim Muellers, Head of Brand Relations for BMW) made an inworld announcement yesterday.

To anyone who has visited the SecondLife virtual world, this is probably not much of a surprise. The number of users and the usability of the interface have not lived up to much of the hype or hopes for a revolution in ‘virtual’ commerce and social interaction.

On the other hand, look out for the September launch of Nurien, a new South Korean developed virtual networking platform that takes SecondLife to a whole new level. With near zero lag time and incredible physics algorithms, Nurien renders fabrics, surfaces and avatars with ’superreality’.

I have been fortunate enough to demo the platform twice: once at a venture capital conference in Shanghai and once at a press announcement and networking event hosted by UltraFuture. The experience is incredible - with the ’superreality’ of the space and avatars creating a deep sense of affinity between the user and online characters.

In William Gibson’s novel ‘Idoru‘, set in a futuristic Tokyo, there is a rock and roll band called Lo/Rez. The lead singer for the band (named ‘Rez’), is rumored to be engaged to an “idoru” or “idol singer” - an artificial celebrity creation of information software agents. We are indeed approaching the time when it will not be uncommon for people to be literally falling in love with avatars. Nurien looks that good.

With current advances in online musical collaboration, I also imagine a virtual rock-band being created inside of a platform like Nurien. Auditions could be made (perhaps via a ‘Supernova’ like show) whenever a band member is unable or unwilling to continue their duties. The same band, then, could theoretically keep pumping out singles and albums ‘forever’ - possibly even outliving the Rolling Stones. Gibson drew many of his ideas for the novel while traveling with U2 during the Zoo TV tour. Maybe Bono and the boys would be up for a new medium? (Paul, if you’re reading this give me a ring.)

Nurien is launching in South Korea this September, and in China in October and set for its US launch early in 2009. Taehoon Kim, founder of Nurien, will be presenting their virtual platform at UltraFuture Expo in Hong Kong this December. Don’t miss it.