HiPiHi in open beta
SuezanneC Baskerville notes that HiPiHi is entering open beta now.
For those that do not recall, this is the Chinese take on Second Life — I got a close-up demo of it about a year ago while at VW Fall, and it looks like a pretty complete system. It offers not only the sort of building you see in SL, but also has things like prefab buildings and layouts offered by the operator.
If you read through the social media slides I posted last week, you know that China is a massively connected society these days, and growing more so. We have mostly seen that to date with MMORPGs in this space, but the hyperactivity there surrounding UGC, particularly with blogs, is fascinating. It will be interesting to see how things go with HiPiHi.
3 Responses to “HiPiHi in open beta”
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I’ll give it a try, though the speed began at 30KB/sec and has now dropped off to about 10KB/sec… could be a little while before I can get an honest opinion up for you.
Connected…and yet…what does it do with all those connections? Are virtual worlds merely the new opiates of the people?
I think up to now they have been nothing but opiates from a purely practical point of view. However, I do think there’s some deep thinkers out there who get to see a world-metaphor laid out before them and get some insights about the real world, especially with respect to socio-political dynamics and group psychology that you can’t have demonstrated to you any other way. That has some intangible value.
Of course, the real value will or won’t come depending on whether anyone does anything more meaningful with it other than… make a more effective opiate.
Even if that’s all virtual worlds turn out to be good for, opiates have their place and you could do worse for the choice of said opiate.