Avatar of the Day: Wingsong

Tiles suggested Wingsong as Avatar of the Day, we assume it is because of her amazing outfit, sexy attitude and wonderful dance moves!

Avatar of the Day: Sandra

Sandra appears both elegant and casual in her jeans, blouse and jacket… The shoes are great and the sunglasses give her a mysterious look that keeps us wondering!

Job offer in Berlin: Ruby & Rails Web Developer

International start-up, globally unique product, 3D social community, real virtual world – that is Metaversum.

Metaversum develops and operates the 3D mirror world Twinity. Twinity connects the real with the virtual by building realistic replicas of the world’s most vibrant cities in 3D. As of now, Berlin, Singapore and London have already launched in Twinity, with more cities to follow soon. Twinity members can create a personal avatar, explore these cities, move into a 3D home, chat with friends, be creative, or just have fun hanging out together. Twinity also offers businesses like Sony Pictures, Motor Music, Drykorn or CineStar new ways of engaging with real people in virtual cities. More information can be found at www.metaversum.com and www.twinity.com.

To strengthen our team in Berlin we are currently looking for a:

Ruby & Rails Web Developer

You would work closely with our product managers and designers to extend a large, high-visibility web application which is tightly integrated with a virtual world. Typical tasks include among others:

  • Implementing Facebook Open Graph API
  • Adding mobile payment
  • Optimizing our landing pages with systematic A/B-testing
  • Adding a real-estate auction platform to the application

Your profile:

  • 3+ years experience developing web applications
  • Strong sense for good user interface design and usability
  • Expert knowledge in PHP, Python or Ruby/Rails. Willing to learn the Ruby on Rails framework.
  • Experienced in developing web-applications with MySQL, JavaScript, (X)HTML, CSS, and related technologies
  • Firm grasp on modern web standards and best practices

Additionally, we would welcome:

  • Experience with XP, scrum or other agile processes
  • Experience with test/behaviour driven development
  • Open source contributions

What we offer:

  • Great products
  • Independent and innovative culture
  • Pioneer spirit and excellent team

If this profile matches your expertise, experience and aspirations, please send your complete application, including your resume in German or English, your salary requirements and a possible starting date, to jobs@metaversum.com with the position title „Ruby & Rails Developer“ in the email subject line.

Metaversum GmbH
Rungestr. 20 | D – 10179 Berlin
www.metaversum.com | www.twinity.com

jobs@metaversum.com
(Online application preferred)

Future of virtual worlds

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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