Second Life developer Linden Lab announced the open beta for Dio, a new website that allows its users to create and explore interactive spaces with one another.
Dio allows its users to create "places" using text, photos, videos and interactive objects in order to develop an interconnected series of "rooms" that can be shared and explored with others. The website includes a persistent chat system and will eventually allow its users to monetize the places they create in a similar manner to Second Life.
"Dio is a new shared creative space on the web," said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. "Based around the concept of linked spaces, Dio makes it easy and fun to create or visit experiences of all kinds. Dio is still in development, and we have deliberately kept the tools as broad as possible, but so far our testers have created a vast range of spaces, from wedding keepsakes, to house tours, to games, to rich media-linked chat rooms about sports and ancient history.
"I'm really looking forward to seeing what people will create now that Dio is more widely available. One of the things that's made Second Life successful is that users are able to monetize their own creativity by selling their creations. Second Life's economy was extremely robust with over $500 million worth of user-to-user transactions last year. With Dio, we want to similarly empower creators by sharing ad revenue with them and ultimately allowing them to sell their creations, and our hope is that this will encourage the kind of incredible dedication and creativity we've seen with Second Life."
Interested users can request an invite to the open beta through the official website. Dio will feature updates to its website every two weeks.
Check out our interview with Rod Humble looking into his theories behind shared creative spaces.
