Parallel Universes Part I: IMVU – Stareyes Galaxy Reporting

There are many other virtual multiplayer environments than Second Life ©. Stareyes Galaxy starts on a journey to these in a multipart article series. The first one on her list was “IMVU”.

IMVU boasts 100 million accounts and the concurrent logins are at 50 000 level. The company itself is based in the Silicon Valley and they have backing from several well-known venture capital investors. The target demographic for the community is the 18-24 year-old bracket. On sign-up, personal data is required, so some content will be locked for underage users. The minimum sign-up age is 13.

Doing interviews on Second Life (SL) I often have found people who have transferred their online existence from IMVU over to SL. For these new avatars entering SL, the openness and the variety found here is often bewildering but liberating at the same time. I decided to set up an account on IMVU and see what that world is all about, and how the experience compares with SL.

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