Blogosphere update

the leapfrog — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:28:00 -0700

Hey, thanks to Paul Glazowski over at Mashable for a great review of JLI:

Mashable’s Take: The concept of a virtual world in terms of a graphical, game-like environment doesn’t particularly suit my interests. Yet I find Just Leap In, a beta release launched out of Vancouver, Canada, offers a surprisingly rich experience… Its browser-based nature makes it something of a stunner. The physics engine is a treat, and visual detail again is an outstanding highlight. A look at the world in full-screen is pretty remarkable when one considers the setting in which the application is operating.

Thanks to the commenters on that post as well. Actually, we’ve read and appreciated several thoughtful comments about JLI this week. Susan Reynolds, who writes Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum, got our joke about empty islands (and shared some very salient thoughts about community-building and relevance for virtual worlds). She also warmed our hearts with this review:

Now comes Just Leap In a newcomer from Canada which, at first blush, sounds like none of the others and could beat Google’s Lively in everything except name recognition. The first clue? You don’t have to search through Google’s annoying database-like setup of questions and answers to figure out how to move around. That alone makes Just Leap In worth a second look.

There’s a lot more out there today, and we’re hoping to round up some responses. At the moment, we’re working towards a major feature release next week that we think you’ll enjoy. Back to the grindstone…

Thanks for checking in.

Debutante week roundup

the leapfrog — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:17:00 -0700

   Woman: Larry, you must meet our daughter, the debutante. She just came out.
   Rodney Dangerfield: Whoa! Put her back in, she’s not done yet!
                 - The Simpsons, “Burns, Baby Burns“

Thank you so much to Consiliera (“No learning curve at all – anybody can create anything with it in minutes”), DigitalFemme, WangXiang, UniversVirtuels, Mal Burns (“This is what we consider closest to an actual metaverse “inside” the web”), The DDM Collective, Mondes virtuels, and everyone who’s taken some time to embed a space or comment on their site or blog during our debutante week. We’re so grateful to you, and we’ve learned a lot from your comments already – the good, the bad, and the ugly. :)

Watching the tweets, friendfeeds, and other microreviews our first users have pointed us to, we’ve learned a lot. We’re getting a heartwarming response from some quarters:

Exploring Just Leap In and um … wow.”

Having a first try on Just Leap In… at least it works, unlike certain Google-owned products I could mention.

Spending some quality time with “Just Leap In” this morning. Frustrated by movement controls already, but VERY cool.

Gaby Bekwitz a.k.a. Consiliera writes:

One week old, no customizable avatars, no multi-user fuctionality yet, but the graphics are excellent, fast, with realistic lighting, physics and much more…and it all runs in any normal web browser as a lightweight plugin. No learning curve at all – anybody can create anything with it in minutes.

Mal Burns writes:

This is what we consider closest to an actual metaverse “inside” the web. Although we believe the web will ultimately be viewed from “inside” a metaverse on your desktop, “Just leap In” displays the graphic wealth of places like Second Life even at this alpha stage.

At the same time, we’ve got a ways to go. We’ve seen several comments from users who aren’t running our supported/majority browsers (Firefox 2/3 and IE 7 on Windows and Mac) and aren’t getting a good experience – or any experience! We know that you’ll be waiting for multiuser avatar support – we’ll be putting more controllable avatars into the live beta within a few short weeks. And we know that at least a couple of you are seeing 3D hardware issues, and we’ll be working with you to sort them out in the next Player updates. Like any early beta, we really appreciate your patience.

On the visual side, we’re basking in having a bit of a Flickr presence out there. And that YouTube video is still pointing in the right direction.

Until later!

o_O leapfrog

Just Leap In: Tag roundups

Blogosphere update

Debutante week roundup