Today we’re opening up Just Leap In to a wider beta group. After an engaging private beta, and thousands of stunning, media-rich 3D worlds on the web (thanks to an amazing beta group: You. Guys. Rock), we figure it’s time to kick the tires a little harder.

... and hey, to show the world how much liveliness there is in 2009’s Fellowship of Virtual Worlds. Our industry’s Boromir may have fallen, but even the smallest person, we hear, can change the course of the future.

Just Leap In?

Just Leap In (JLI for short) aims to broaden the appeal of web-based 3D for a mainstream audience, especially – early on – the kind of audience that uses a lot of social media tools: Facebook, Flickr, Friendfeed, YouTube, you name it.

Goals

We’re focused on delivering

• • a simple, great experience of Web-based 3D media sharing
   (photos, videos, music)
• • useful social interactions (comments, chat, networking)
• • ease-of-use (everything is drag-and-drop)
• • a jaw-drapping 3D environment for web browsers on Mac & PC platforms.

We’re not (just) another virtual chatroom. Uniquely, we offer an RSSable newsfeed that syndicates 3D events ‘off-world’. While we’re delivering full game-state networking, we’re also after an asynchronous browsing experience, in order to make a 3D world function like a YouTube embed—or like any personal/corporate blog or webpage.

Mainly, though, we seek to ‘grow the pie’ for true 3D worlds on the Web, and appeal beyond an already-experienced 3D audience.

Mission

The first day I leap into 3D to find a friend or watch a film, and I forget it’s a “virtual world,” on that day the virtual worlds industry has grown up.

In that spirit, we’re aiming to make 3D part of the lifestream of the social web.

Who’s using this thing?

Most our private beta users are around the peak social media demographic (18-34), haven’t spent much time in a virtual world before, but are avid users of tools like Flickr and YouTube who are totally interested in swapping to a 3D environment. If you listen to those kinds of users, they want to do stuff like browse for friends and share photos and videos online. Other virtual worlds don’t actually make that stuff easy to do. So we’ve grown organically to make those key activities as simple as possible.

How do I get started?

It’s a free public beta—hop in over at JustLeapIn.com, create a 3D space, share it anywhere on the web, and let us know what you think.

Happy New Year to all!

3… 2… 1…

Season’s Greetings from Just Leap In!

We’re delighted to tell you about a major upgrade to JustLeapIn.com today—just in time to ring in the New Year.

When you’re next online, dive right in to JLI to try out the new beta, or read on for the details.

Here’s the big news! Today, we’re introducing the following features for beta testing:

• Multi-user 3D networking & collaborative editing – invite your friends to help you build a world, and play in real time on the Web. Please help us experiment!
• Multiple spaces per user – create up to 100 3D spaces on the Web, share up to 3 at a time
• Facebook Connect – link JLI to your Facebook account (more coming soon)
• Audio upload – upload your sound clips and music and attach to objects in 3D space
• Private spaces – only friends with your share link can play in your space
• Increased object limits – you can now have up to 50 objects per space, and up to 30 unique objects.
• Next-gen Portals – one of our signature features has a major facelift: open any Portal, and you can see your 3D destination space right away! (Current users will have to re-deploy their portals to see the new effect).
• Faster caching – we’re caching more 3D content for faster access. So the more often you visit, the faster your downloads. :-)
• Lots of brand new 3D content, seasonal spaces, and delightful toys – read on beneath the fold for details.

As ever, JLI supports both Mac OS X and PC web browsers (Firefox and IE 7). We let you share your favorite 3D spaces with friends anywhere on the Web—just hit the “Share” button from any 3D space.

It’s a beta test, so you hit any trouble with the new beta or have a suggestion to share, please (please!) contact us for help, or hop on the JLI Forum.

Very best wishes from all of us here in the Great White North (brrrr). We want to take this opportunity to thank you SO much for your help, your creative suggestions, and all the time you’ve spent with JLI in 2008—not least your thousands of incredible spaces and contributions. It’s going to be an incredible New Year!

Read on for new 3D content…

Hi folks! While we’re working on our next major update, we’re also busy responding to feedback.

Our sample avatars just returned from physiotherapy today. So the next time you log in and see your avatar in action, look for:

• - Sprint mode (Shift + run over 2 seconds)
• - More variety in idle animations
• - More natural responses, sidesteps, stair climbs, etc.

More motion soon.

You’ll also notice a charming tweak to interactivity in today’s update: lights in any space are now interactive (click once to turn off, click again to turn on).