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Metaplace builds a different architecture for virtual worlds.

Web worlds: Metaplace wants to enable its users to build virtual worlds, such as the one shown above, that could exist anywhere on the Web.
Credit: Metaplace

Many of today's virtual worlds have been influenced by science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson's vision of a Metaverse, described in his novel Snow Crash. Stephenson's Metaverse swallows up the Web and Internet into a 3-D space that users navigate with avatars. But Raph Koster, president of Metaplace, based in San Diego, and former creative lead for the influential game Ultima Online, believes that the Metaverse should look decidedly different.

Metaplace is building a system that's designed to treat virtual worlds like other content on the Web, Koster says. A virtual world, he explains, is simply a place where multiple users can interact with one another or with objects built for that world.

"We think virtual worlds are just a new medium,"