Recent industry news has led many to speculate on what will happen with virtual worlds, and to start to cast a view on different virtual worlds. Here’s some opinions about Twinity on ayeshalytton’s blog.

Twinity feels like a cross between Blue Mars and The Sims. It’s visually superior to SL, but runs better on my computer than Blue Mars. The avatars remind me of The Sims 2 and 3, and are fairly realistic but have limited customization options, comparable to Blue Mars. They have a working currency, and you can shop for new content from your inventory window.

The concept behind Twinity seems to be to replicate real-world cities and locations. Their promotional material does not emphasize creativity or fantasy, and indeed, what exists there so far is rather bland. The potential is there, but the proper marketing is not. The viewer is simple to use, but fairly limited and lacks the options of the SL viewer. It has a working search and it’s easy to find places to go.

I noted that Anshe Chung has a presence in Twinity. An event at one of her sims was advertised via a small pop-up at the bottom of the viewer. While I’m no fan of Anshe’s, I liked that Twinity promoted the event to users. It made it easy to find people to talk to and something to do. I wish Linden Lab would do something like this – although every club owner with a crappy “Best in Blue” event would howl and cry, if they chose quality events like live music, plays and gallery openings to pop up in the viewer, it would do a lot for new user retention.

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