This is exactly how I see it. Metaplace brings together a lot of powerful forces, social networking, web 2.0 and gaming.

The genie is out of the bottle now so even if they don’t deliver there will be imitators that do. Even existing MMOs and social networking sites will adapt their products to be closer to this model.

To me this looks like one of the biggest things to hit the web in some time, I wouldn’t be suprised if Google bought it.

I am actually excited!

- Areae will host the servers. If Metaplace takes off, this will be an enormous expense. Will the business model sustain it? I’m unclear if it’ll be driven by advertising or by subscriptions or both. (If it truly followed the web-page model, then anyone could run a Metaspace server and companies could even set up premium Metaspace hosting services. That doesn’t look like the plan at this point.)

- What will the tools be like? How flexible will the scripting be? How easy will it be to interconnect worlds? For this to really live up to its promise, the tools will have to be fantastic. That’s what’ll make or break this, IMO.

- Will it really be cross-platform? It seems to me that you hobble the effectiveness of the app by making it compatible with cell-phones. I’d rather Areae focus on making a KILLER implementation for PC/Mac (and Wii’s Opera browser!), then try to break into Xbox 360 or PS3, and worry about mobile seperately. But that’s just me.

That said, I’ll be watching this closely. If it really does come together, the ramifications would be seismic! And if it doesn’t… then someone else will have to step up and fulfill this promise, because I think the idea is world-changing.

-Fargo