Change is inevitable. Things grow, diversify, consolidate and hopefully better, more focused services rise from the ashes of the consolidation that occurs. We see this is nearly every industry, so virtual worlds should be no different. The timing is good for a change as businesses continue to sift through the virtual worlds waiting for one to emerge with real potential for business impact.
Metaplace Shutting Their Virtual Doors
Metaplace announced recently they’ll be shutting the doors Jan 1, 2010 for good. I have not read yet what their next venture will be, but they make reference to the “consumer service not gaining enough traction” which leads one to believe they are going to focus on organizations instead. Most likely an enterprise only service is in the works. As such, they would release some people in the company focused on the consumer side as well as shut down something that no longer fits in their mission.
Have you heard more about this? Got some insider direction to share? Do tell, we are all ears.
Read more about the Metaplace shutdown from this excerpt right off website.
Metaplace.com is closing downon 12/21/2009 at 5:53 pm
Over the last several years, we here at Metaplace Inc. have been working very hard to create an open platform allowing anyone to come to a website and create a virtual world of their own.
Unfortunately, over the last few months it has become apparent that Metaplace as a consumer UGC service is not gaining enough traction to be a viable product, requiring a strategic shift for our company.
We’re sorry to announce today that Metaplace.com will be closing to the public at 11:59pm on January 1st, 2010.
This is a bittersweet moment for us. Metaplace Inc the company will be continuing on – in fact, we have big plans – but what you the users have known as Metaplace will be going away. We are also losing some friends and colleagues here as part of this strategic shift.
We’d rather dwell on the good than the sad. You, the users, have done amazing work here, and we want to celebrate it. We may not have managed to reach our goals with Metaplace.com and Metaplace Central, but we still had a lot of fun, watched creativity flower, visited amazing places, and made a lot of friends. We’ve had amazing guest speakers, more parties than we can count, live concerts, movie premieres and art shows; we’ve seen you make adventures and schools and churches and games and countless other sorts of worlds that would otherwise never have been created.
[...] We are embarking on a new and exciting direction, and it feels strange not to have you all along for the ride.
