After a very, very, very long beta period*, Myrl has hatched. Tagline? ‘Connecting worlds’. Malheuresement it does not connect the virtual worlds, but rather their inhabitans. Myrl indeed offers social networking abilities for Avatars / Residents, from ‘Second Life’, ‘There’, ‘All’ and ‘Cross Worlds’ but so do Facebook, MSN, SLProfiles, Koinup, Ning… . But probably on Myrl, no annoying humans who want to share the last photograph of their - assumed cute - kids with us. Yeey! ;)

What I found to be most interesting about the Myrl concept, where you ‘Myrl’ someone or something if you want to vote for it, is that the amount of Myrls you get to give out depends on your Karma. And that Karma also takes in-world time in account to determine your authority. ‘Life scrobbler: how much time you’ve spent inworld (60 mins=6 points).‘ The ‘leverage’ it has is minimal, of course participating on Myrl is still the most important, but still, it’s an interesting concept. Because, probably, those who spend the most world in-time are the best people to judge what or who is hot, interesting, … ? *goes to find an attachment spot to attach the Myrl button*

Social networking facilities are most closely to Ning’s, with an added function that you can rate - ‘Myrl’ - everything from persons over groups to events and businesses:

1. Sort to show all or just from ‘Second Life’, ‘There’ or ‘Cross Worlds’.
2. The ability to tag everything. (And thus also easily browse by tags.)
3. Room for groups and organisations.
4. The ability to submit an event, place, business, news (to your blog), image or video.

Will I use it? A lot? Honestly, I don’t think so. I already blog on vintfalken.com, I post my photographs to Flickr and/or Koinup, I have my feedreader to keep track of SLnews and avatar friends to send me event invites and even more news. So, let me link my Myrl blog to VintFalken.com’s RSS feed, read my photographs from my Flickr account, … and I might consider being a bit more active.

But most important reason why I don’t feel comfortable on Myrl yet? I feel lonely there. I would invite some friends over, if only I could find the ’send out invitations’ button. You know, the probably most important button on a social networking site? That button that gets them people, because they either want to be first, or after a while, just want to blend in with the crowd? I haven’t localized that one yet. I hope - for their sakes - they have one and I just overlooked.

* Yikes. Nvm that. Still in private beta mode. *Blushes incredibly hard*

Tags: myrl, social networking, virtual worlds

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