hipihi

Wagner James Au took a trip to China recently and while there fit in a visit to the HiPiHi offices. His article on GigaOm answered a few questions that we've had for a long time about this latest Second Life contender:

1. The Name - It's pronounced "high-pee-high". I wonder if I've been saying it wrong for too long to change. "Pihi" is Chinese for “innocent child,” and the three i’s connotate the Chinese ideogram for society.

2. Virtual Goods - User-created content will be a mainstay of the world, and users will retain intellectual property rights. Integrated right into the system, however, will be the ability to publish content under Creative Commons.

3. Land - Time zones will be fixed by the system and a map will be pre-defined. Yes, the possibility of purchasing land exists.

4. Censorship - Since HiPiHi originates from China this is a concern. The parameters here are very clear: sex in private is OK, discussing politics is not. Everything will be monitored through a keyword filtering system based on the Great Firewall of China. Apparently "beta users are already voluntarily watching what they say."

5. Segmentation - Various parts of HiPiHi will be restricted to certain countries based on server location, and there will be marked differences in how content is dealt with. The keyword filtering system will only really apply to the areas confined to the Chinese, for instance.

Some allusions were made to allowing Second Life avatars to travel to HiPiHi, but we'll have to wait and see if that's anywhere near happening. We still haven't heard anything definitive about the currency either, but considering QQ's regulation conflicts, we can't blame them for hesitating.

One last thing did become clear though: they have successfully established a hardcore community of passionate beta testers. As we've seen so many times in the past, that's all a world needs in the long-term to survive.

At the State of Play V conference now being held in Singapore some announcements were made regarding the global strategy of HiPiHi. The plan comes in three parts: create standards, make HiPiHi interact with other virtual worlds, and bring on third party developers. In their words:

First, HiPiHi will cooperate with global leaders in the Internet and communication industry to establish a set of relevant hardware and software standards for the development of the 3D platform. Second, HiPiHi will cooperate with other major 3D virtual worlds to finalize these standards, and bring the possibility for users to interact and transact between different virtual worlds. Lastly, HiPiHi will actively build its “Global Market Partnership Project”, “Third Party Developer Project” and “Community Partnership Project”, to establish a HiPiHi virtual world global value chain.

These goals all come with varying degrees of difficulty. While there is certainly a lot of interest in the industry in creating hardware and software standards, deciding what those standards should be may be a struggle considering the number of patents being filed in this area. Everybody will want what brings them the most personal profit. Hopefully an open standard will be found here.

The second goal of cross-platform interaction is exciting, but one has to wonder what oddities might develop when a virtual economy intersects directly with another. What would happen if I could buy Linden Dollars with Therebux, which are available at various degrees of discount?

The last point coins various project names all loosely connotating a more agressive stance on recruiting third-party developers for content and expansion of HiPiHi. There's no point in really speculating on something this vague, but considering Linden Lab's colorful history in this area, it will be really interesting to see what HiPiHi's unique take will be on encouraging community growth.

Rand Leeb-du Toit, CEO of Yoick, recently blogged that China is getting ready for a "virtual world onslaught".

The most public argument for this would be Cyworld China. Since launching in June 2005 they've reached 3 million subscribers and are growing by 15,000 a day. Add to this Tencent's QQ with its half a billion registered users, and you have an audience that is accustomed to purchasing virtual items and "forming deeper connections via immersive environments."

As far as virtual worlds, they have HiPiHi (often referred to as a "Second Life clone"), and the upcoming worlds from Shanda, UOneNet and Entropia. Once these worlds have established themselves, expect many more companies to join the virtual world industry.

Back from a trip to China, Centric has offered some fantastic insights into the virtual world of HiPiHi. Having just received new venture capital investment, HiPiHi is due to make an appearance in the west soon and is regarded as a direct competitor for Second Life. Here are Centric's top ten things you need to know:

10. It’s surprisingly fast. Even though it’s served from China, we’re seeing 75-100fps typically on a midline system. Of course, the maximum concurrency is low, so we’ll reserve judgement on heavier use for later.

9. Water effects are quite nice. From the reflections, to the distortion of your avatar when you’re underwater, this is nicely done.

8. You swim!!! Yeah, that’s built right into the system. Take a dunk and you end up swimming through the water, complete with realistic sound effects. No scripts required!

7. There’s weather. There are days when it rains. The water ripples, dulls, and loses reflectivity. The palette of the world slides to gray. It may not be everyone’s, er, cup of tea, but it’s nice to see some variation.

6. On the fly ground retexturing. Yeah, I know, now I’m getting developer-geeky, but it’s neat to be able to pick a tool, set the size, pick a texture, and redo your plot on the fly.

5. It’s a contiguous world. Want to swim from the mainland to the islands? Go right ahead. Want to fly from one side of the world to the other? Sure.

4. The flight engine. Whoever did their helicopter knew their stuff. This is responsive, nicely realistic, and very usable. Also, the helicopter appears to be made of irregular prims, which is neat in and of itself.

3. Inventory preview!!! Yes, you can see what’s in your inventory (and relative size) before you whip it out and surprise yourself. This is a great feature.

2. The distance algorithms. Yeah, it’s clear that fog is covering something up, but again, it’s nicely done. The world melts away rather seamlessly into a fog of brilliant white, like there’s always something just on the edge of your vision, waiting to be discovered.

1. The whole surreality of spending time in a Chinese virtual world. It’s a helluva trip. The very fact we’re wandering around in virtual worlds from every corner of the globe and comparing their relative merits is hugely exciting. And then there are the random people who walk up and start speaking Chinese . . .

In an as yet unconfirmed rumor buzzing around Chinese tech blogs, the Second Life like Chinese virtual world Hipihi appears to have just received it's first big round of funding. According to insiders at the firm, the amount, provided by three venture firms is said to be between $7 and $10M.

Founded in 2005, Hipihi is a virtual world that resembles Linden Lab's Second Life closely. Not a great deal is known about it, other than it's in closed beta, and nearing general release. If you've not seen Hipihi, you might like to check out this video released back in March this year.