I just spent an hour on ActiveWorlds and @mart (using the free download), and here's my assessment.
First of all let me just say that it was a seamless installation. Granted I'm on a fast connection, but it was no more than 45 seconds between double-clicking on the install icon and zooming around @Mart for the first time.
I wandered around for a while and got a feel for the place. Kind of cheesy - you need to be someone with time to kill to really enjoy this place. But at the same time, if you're a big fan of chat rooms, you might love it. Because that's what it is - a glorified chat room with the potential for a lot more.
While I was there I made it a point to try and find an Amazon rep, but there was none to be found. But I did speak with a fellow who claimed to be the owner of Mule Dog records - he was standing outside his shop. I asked him how he got the store and if he saw significant sales from the online mall, and what he thought of the place. He said he had no complaints with the place and was a citizen of AW for 2 years. Since the mall has only been open for a week or so he really doesn't know if he's seen a sales increase because of it. His answers to my questions were reasonable enough for me to conclude that he was truly who he said he was. I didn't see anything or anyone suspicious while I was there. I checked out the other "worlds" too - they were new to me, but nothing I personally would subscribe to. Even so, they have their appeal.
I intend to go back and pursue the Amazon issue, because it still raises questions in my mind.
The program itself can definitely use a LOT of tweaking. The programmers could use to research UIs for vast multi-user environments and learn lessons from such games as Ultima Online. It would be nice to be able to change the view, to bookmark places to teleport, etc. Maybe all this is possible with the commercial version, I don't know.
More to come on this sage, but for now AW looks genuine. Even so, I'd encourage you all to do more research in this vein as I have, because it can only help us to become wiser investors with regards to this company (and future companies along these lines, of which we are likely to see many down the road!)
-G |
