What Is Conduit Labs?

The news of Conduit Labs receiving US$5.5 million in series A funding is everywhere at the moment. The backers are Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks, two venture capital heavy-hitters in Web 2.0 and virtual world circles. The story is being carried by 3pointD, Read/Write Web, TechCrunch, Virtual Worlds News, and Worlds In Motion. Personally, I first heard about it from Raph.

Projects get funding every day. Why is this one so special?

In part this is about mashups: take a massive multiplayer game space, mix in social networking, and you're almost there. Of course that's not really the sum total of the idea, but if you're looking for a simple way of wrapping your head around it, that's the overview. Mashups make news.

There's more to it than that though. Conduit Labs' CEO Nabeel Hyatt weaves a complex tale on the company blog, spanning sports, war reporting, and live-action role playing groups. "Each of these examples is profoundly about people. Not so much about how they met, but how they formed relationships, how they built communities, how they bonded. And, in their own way, each of these examples illustrates the concept behind Conduit."

Conduit isn't just a play space with leaderboards. They're planning, from the ground up, to create a play space that encourages people to get to know each other. Stress can drive people apart or it can be a powerful bonding agent. The hope is to create moments in people's lives where they achieve something great together, and maybe discover something special about someone they wouldn't have otherwise spoken to.

There are some isolated areas that offer a little bit of the kind of shared experience that I’m talking about. MMOs, presence streams, and Second Life, for example, skirt around the edges. But they feel a little like social networking did 10 years ago; when there was Six Degrees and IMing - but no one had taken it to the next level yet.

Expect it to be browser-based, expect it to be social-network oriented, expect it to be fun, and expect news this winter. As always, we'll keep you posted.