Riding high from their first success: The Digital You, Big Stage Entertainment wants to help you create your perfect avatar and then carry it around with you, cross platform.
As Dean Takahashi from VentureBeat reports, Big Stage uses a 3D facial modeling system to render a rather convincing 3D version of a person from 3 digital photos take from slightly different angles. This image can be created in roughly two minutes, so no complex know-how is necessary. Once your perfect digital you is created, the Big Stage technology will then allow you to carry this avatar with you from one application to another, provided that the platform conforms to Big Stage’s API. While this API is still proprietary, the long-term goal at Big Stage is to make this API an industry standard.
The portable avatar is currently available at Big Stage.com and interfaces with Facebook and MySpace. But Big Stage has larger aspirations, with speculation about using you digital you in MMO’s such as World of Warcraft and Star Wars. IBM took point on opening discussions with a number of virtual worlds, but the going hasn’t been easy. The first virtual world that will make use of Portable You is Icarus Studios, a white label virtual world creator.
“The idea could catch on because it fits with the theme of personalization that is taking over everything, from YouTube personal video channels to social networks,” says Big Stage CE Phil Ressler
And Big Stage isn’t just limited to social networking and games customization. The Venue Network is already using Portable You in its VenueGen virtual conference product that is slated to hit the streets in 2009. What’s more, Big Stage has secured a deal with Lion’s Gate Entertainment, and will run a promotion tied to the upcoming film, The Spirit, where users can create their Portable You avatar and insert it into key scenes from the movie. Who needs Keanu Reeves to do all the cool stuff when you can simply insert yourself?
Ressler says that the company plans on monetization via microtransaction based avatar customizations including glasses, different hairstyles, etc.
The South Pasadena, California company currently has 20 employees on staff and was founded in 2007. The company grew out of an advanced stereo reconstruction technology R&D project at USC funded by the CIA and other government grants. Big Stage Entertainment has raised $7.9 million in funding from investors Mission Ventures, Selby Ventures and Tech Coast Angels.
Having a cross platform portable avatar does have a number of appealing aspects, so long as it’s an option and not a requirement. For example, I’d rather keep my bad @$$ looking orc face on my warrior, rather than plaster my mug all over it. Something about leading a raid with my baby face might not exactly inspire confidence in other players. On the other side of the coin, watching my face battle through some highflying space battles with Han Solo at my side would be pretty darn cool, I have to admit. Cross platform avatars, what’s next – a cross platform currency for microtransactions? If only there was a company that could accomplish that. Oh wait….there is!
Tags: Avatar, big stage entertainment, dean takahashi, microtransaction, personalization, Phil Ressler, Portable, social networking, virtual worlds, World of Warcraft
