Introducing Conduit Labs

We just announced our recent Series A investment in Conduit Labs, a Boston based company that’s focused on building a social networking / casual MMO hybrid.  Well, what does that exactly mean? And aren’t there a hundred companies now doing this exact same thing? 

This new space – the intersection of Web 2.0 and online gaming – is a very difficult one to define.  This categorization encompasses companies like Kongregate to Areae to Three Rings – each of whom is vastly ...Read More

Recent CRV Investments: Twitter & Social Media

We’ve made a couple of interesting investments recently in the social media space – Twitter and well, the aptly named Social Media.  Social Media, the company, is building a highly viral network of micro-applications that live across multiple social networks.  The announcement regarding the Social Media funding is here.  Social Media is a 1st cousin to companies like Slide and RockYou – both of which are essentially virtualized social operating systems, coordinating massive networks of widget-based microtransactions.

What I find compelling about ...Read More

Areae and the rise of the Social Networking / MMO hybrid

When I started writing this blog, very few people were talking about the melding of MMOs and Web 2.0.  My goal for the last year was to proliferate this concept widely and to help bring together what I observed to be two very segregated, but highly complementary communities.  This was my motivation behind putting together a Virtual Worlds/Casual MMO panel at the Web 2.0 Expo and for including the panel on “Virtual Items: Mainstream or Not” at the Virtual Goods Summit. 

 Yesterday, BusinessWeek published a special report called “Getting Serious ...Read More

Come to my Web 2.0 Expo panel: Gaia Online & Club Penguin talk publicly for the first time ever

If you’re at Web 2.0 Expo, come to my talk tomorrow, Wednesday from 3:20 – 4:10 pm in room 2009, about “the Future of Online Gaming & Virtual Worlds.”   I’ve put together a wonderful group of panelists that includes:

Gene Yoon, VP Business Affairs for LindenLab / SecondLife Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online Lane Merrifield, CEO of Club Penguin Raph Koster, President of Areae Joi Ito, Chairman of Creative Commons, Board member of Mozilla, and my World of Warcraft guild leader

I’m psyched because Gaia Online and Club Penguin are ...Read More