3pointD.com

Reuters has the news that the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) will be getting a $7 million round of investment from CBS and Gladwyne Partners (the latter having invested in a previous round). Sheep CEO Sibley Verbeck tells the news agency, “Electric Sheep plans to use the financing to create software to make virtual worlds ready for mainstream consumption.” Nice going, guys. In fact, I was mentioning something like this idea at Friday’s metaverse meetup. Virtual worlds to this point have been the province of people coming out of the gamedev community, for the most part. I really see them as more of a media convergence phenomenon. Which means that media companies, which have been serving “entertainment experiences” to huge audiences for decades — and have massive bankrolls to show for it — are going to be huge players in the space, before long. Or even sooner.