SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 30-JUL-2009 10:00 PM

Doppelganger, the developers of vSide, were acquired by Canadian company Hip Digital Media in August 2008 for a rumored $40 million after having spent over $26 million on the development of the platform and successfully attracting brands such as the Pussy Cat Dolls, Tyra Banks and MTV. Doppelganger was backed by leading VCs ComVentures, Greycroft Partners, KPG Ventures, Trident Capital, Draper Richards and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

ExitReality acquired the platform and vSide virtual world to add to its suite of virtual worlds products. With ExitReality every existing website can be experienced as a virtual world, for example Facebook profiles become 3D apartments. ExitReality has integrated with leading social networks which has attracted brands such as Carls Jr., Hardees, WarnerBros and Paris Hilton.

“vSide have successfully created a fun high quality experience for its users with a focus on engagement, retention and yield. We were excited to find out when it comes to revenue per user vSide is in the league of other virtual worlds such as Habbo, IMVU and Club Penguin.” said Danny.

ExitReality is a privately-held company with offices in San Francisco, London and Melbourne Australia.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

[end]

Further media information contact: Lee Jabara ( lee@smartprcorp.com) ph: +1.347.535.0844 cell: + 61.418.319.068 or prweber@exitreality.com

With Christmas coming up, now is the perfect time to add a Virtual Winter Christmas to your website. It doesn’t cost anything to set up, it is a simple process and best of all it does not mess with your 2D website.

We will show you how to add a virtual Christmas-Themed 3D destination to your website. Inside your virtual world, you will be able to invite website visitors to explore, chat and interact in 3D. Best of all, you can personally wish them all a Merry Christmas in real time with 3D avatar chat. It is fun, easy to implement and free. View the video to see what is possible.

To get started, download ExitReality at www.exitreality.com. It is a free, 4MB plug-in that enables 3D on your website.

To learn more about the 3D Internet, visit www.exitreality.com to learn what is possible on the 3D web. Once you have taken the simple first steps to viewing the 3D Internet, you can get started decorating your own website, by following these three easy steps:

Step 1: Create a 3D Winter Environment on your website Turn a standard 3D space into a snow-covered mountain side, complete with falling snow. It is simple and easy to implement. No coding, just drag and drop and will take moments.

Step 2: Customise Your Winter Christmas World using 3D Models Add 3D models such as snowmen, trees and presents to enhance your Christmas world. By moving, duplicating or even resizing 3D models, you can customise your 3D winter virtual world to suit your taste and style.

Step 3: Personalise with your own content and save Most importantly, you can add images and video to your virtual world! Create your own personalised Merry Christmas video or Christmas Card image and add it for great effect. Make sure you save your creation, ensuring your visitors will experience a winter’s Christmas at your 3D website!

Wish your friends and family a Merry Virtual Christmas by sending them a note to visit your website, tell them to click the ‘Launch in 3D’ button, then meet them at your very own Virtual Christmas Town. Have fun!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from ExitReality.

Adding a 3D Winter Christmas World to Your Website is part of a series of four published articles.
Overview | Step 1: Add Themes | Step 2: Add 3D Models | Step 3: Add Personalised Content

The first step to creating your own 3D Winter Christmas World at your website or social network page is easy. There are only three steps in the process. The first step is to place the Christmas environment on your 3D website or space.

If you haven’t read our Overview Article - Adding 3D Winter Christmas World to Your Website, we recommend that you read it first, before continuing.

To help you along, we have created a video to demonstrate how to add a Christmas environment to your website. Lets get started!

Changing the environment of a 3D world can greatly enhance the look and feel of your own virtual world. It is as simple as finding the right 3D theme from the ExitReality Search Engine, and dragging-and-dropping it into your world. The ‘Simple Mountain’ Theme will work perfectly here.

Since we are creating a Christmas Winter World, why not also add some falling snow? Search for our ‘Falling Snow’ snow globe in the ExitReality Search Engine and drag it into your scene for animated falling snow particles!

Now you have a virtual winter Christmas World at your website, the next step is to add and decorate your virtual world with 3D Christmas models.

To continue building your winter Christmas world, read the next article, where we will show you how to fill your virtual world with Christmas 3D models such as Snowmen and Christmas trees.

Add a 3D winter world to your website this Christmas. Download ExitReality free at www.exitreality.com

Adding a 3D Winter Christmas World to Your Website is part of a series of four published articles.
Overview | Step 1: Add Themes | Step 2: Add 3D Models | Step 3: Add Personalised Content

In this series of articles, we have demonstrated how to add a 3D winter environment to your website. Please click on the link if you have missed Step One.

It is time to start adding cool 3D models to your new virtual winter environment. Make it look like Christmas by adding 3D objects such as Snowmen, Christmas trees and Presents to add the feeling of Christmas to your virtual world.

You do not need to be an expert 3D modeller, simply search for 3D models using the ExitReality search engine and drag-and-drop them into your scene. The ExitReality Search Engine is part of the dashboard at the top of your screen when you are browsing in 3D.

The following video will show you just how easy it is to start adding 3d models to bring Christmas to your own virtual world.

Already your Christmas world is looking fun and inviting. But let’s make it special by adding our own personalised messages to it.

In our final article in this series, we will show you how to add personalised content such as photos and videos into your Virtual Christmas World!

Add a 3D winter world to your website this Christmas. Download ExitReality free at www.exitreality.com

Adding a 3D Winter Christmas World to Your Website is part of a series of four published articles.
Overview | Step 1: Add Themes | Step 2: Add 3D Models | Step 3: Add Personalised Content

In this series of articles on How to add a 3D Winter Christmas World to your website, we have demonstrated:

Step One - how to add a virtual winter environment to your website and,
Step Two - how to add 3D Christmas models to your virtual winter space,

In this third and final article we will show you how to add personalised content such as pictures and video to your 3D Christmas Virtual World.

The ExitReality Search Engine includes 3D picture frames to display images and TV’s to play videos from YouTube. Why not add a Christmas message to the picture frame and add a Christmas video to a 3D TV model? Follow the links below for detailed instructions on adding photos and video:

Add Images to a 3D Photo Frame
Add YouTube movies to your virtual world

Don’t know how to make your own images for a picture frame? You can create free images based on your own text by visiting a graphics generator website such as Cool Text: http://cooltext.com/

Images need to be hosted on the Internet in order for other people to see them. You can host your images for free at websites like Free Image Hosting: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/

Now that your Christmas world is complete, it is time to save it! Click the save button in the edit menu, and you will be given some HTML code to add to your 2D website. The HTML code is a button saying “Launch in 3D”. This button links directly to your 3D virtual world.

Once you have added the ‘Launch in 3D” button to your 2D website, any visitor can click the button and will be instantly taken to your 3D Christmas land.

Add a 3D winter world to your website this Christmas. Download ExitReality free at www.exitreality.com

Adding a 3D Winter Christmas World to Your Website is part of a series of four published articles.
Overview | Step 1: Add Themes | Step 2: Add 3D Models | Step 3: Add Personalised Content

ExitReality Public Beta has now been officially launched to the world.

The entire internet is now available in 3D. Over 40 billion web pages are now virtual worlds created instantly and ready to be explored.

ExitReality has unveiled its 3D search engine with the biggest repository of open source 3D worlds and 3D objects on the Internet. Search for 3D content in the ExitReality Dashboard when you are in 3D or at www.exitreality.com

It’s free and easy-to-use. ExitReality creates an instant 3D environment from any web page effectively 3D-enabling every website and social network profile. And this new universe of inter-connected worlds expands even beyond 2D to include thousands of innovative 3D places and games created by 3D developers over the past decade with more being added everyday.
View the video below to learn more:

Founder and CEO Danny Stefanic launched ExitReality Public Beta at Federation Square in Melbourne Australia.

With ExitReality, users can now view their Social Network Pages such as Facebook and MySpace as a 3D apartment and further enhance their webspace with 3D objects and themes from the ExitReality Search Engine. Users can invite friends to view their 3D page and chat in real time using a 3D character or avatar – a body that represents you in 3D.

YouTube videos can now be viewed as a 3D cinema. Watch the same YouTube video with others. Now you can chat and comment as avatars about the video being played right in front you. Flickr albums and search results can be viewed as an online gallery.

Furthermore, users can explore virtual worlds created by developers found in the ExitReality Search Engine.

ExitReality is an opportunity for any Internet user to connect with friends, meet new people with the same interests, chat to anyone with 3D avatar multiuser chat , create and decorate a virtual home.

Compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox Internet browser, it’s free and easy to get started. Download and install the ExitReality plugin after a quick 4MB download, and you’re ready to explore a whole new Internet world.

Imagine this … you are exploring the new 3D Internet with ExitReality and you chance across the best car - a 3D Ferrari F360. You want to show it to a friend you know will love it. Instead of inviting them to that virtual place to see it, you can add it to your ‘My Stuff’ in ExitReality then give it to them as a gift.

Armed with their new 3D Ferrari, your friend can then decorate their own profile apartment with their new Ferrari, and even pass it on to other friends.

Next time you see something cool in ExitReality, click on ‘pick up’ in ‘My Stuff’ then click on the object you want to add to your My Stuff. Then click ’send’ to send it to one of your ‘Buddies’.

You can also add your objects in ‘My Stuff’ to your own space (Your Web page or social network converted to 3D instantly with ExitReality)

Welcome to the ExitReality plaza. On today’s journey into the 3D Internet we will begin at the new plaza at the heart of ExitReality (Official opening today!). Think of it as a launching pad for your 3D adventures.

As we walk through the plaza you’ll see all the different attractions. On the right, an arcade full of cool games to play - Try your avatar’s hand at the street-fighting face-off or Old School Beat Down. On the left we’re passing the Rip Lounge, where you can meet and chat to people. Of course, there’s always more virtual burgers to consume - The Carl’s Jr./Hardees restaurant is ahead. Enter to climb on board the mechanical bull.

Here we finish our official tour of the plaza - Feel free (and it is free, totally free) to stay and chat to other users, or you could go to your own apartment or place (Yes you do already have one - it’s a decorated 3D version of your social network profile, or Website page) where you can add a whole new look … or visit any of the thousands of 3D worlds.

Have fun storming the castle…

You can find all the information on ExitReality including how to download the plug-in, how to navigate through virtual worlds etc… at www.exitreality.com or visit the Knowledgebase at http://kb.exitreality.com/

Click here to enter the plaza

The case for advertising online is already a compelling one. And an increasing number of companies don’t need convincing — The Internet ad market last year grew 26%, surpassing both radio and cable TV, to reach $21.2 billion, according to the annual online ad spending report from IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

This week MTV showed combining their television show The Hills with an online 3D virtual world and a website, meaning users were far more engaged. Not only that, but their watchers who also visited the website and the virtual world had much more positive things to say about The Hills major sponsor Pepsi, according to the report. (See Adweek article ). Until now promotion across several platforms with digital media was suspected to work, but never proved.

Because ExitReality enables instant representation of every single social network page as an inhabitable 3D environment, when it launches soon ExitReality will instantly be the world’s largest 3D virtual world with more than 300 million 3D places. For advertisers, this represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to promote their brands through the birth of a new medium.

Once launched, advertisers, publishers and users will be able to build, manage and freely participate in the growth of this medium. Pre-launch, we are offering select partners the opportunity to gain early access to our technology and the ability to deeply integrate within the platform itself.

ExitReality not only offers cross-platform promotion opportunities, but easy access to 3D advertising — Virtual goods have been built by ExitReality that support web ad feeds such as standard banner ad formats. These ad objects can be used by users to decorate their 3D page. A partner can have full control over which ads are displayed on these goods for visitors of their site’s domain. These ads are clickable just like normal web banner ads, so partners can make money through normal web advertising services.

From there the opportunities are endless: we are currently creating branded avatars, objects, decorations, buildings and places for our pre-launch partners.
With ‘giveaways’, businesses can spread their brand message. It’s all set up for viral distribution. A user takes a cool 3D object from a business space, puts it in their own 3D space then their friends and other visitors can take the object for their own page, and because ExitReality extends over all social networks, the object has the potential to appear everywhere. These objects can engage the user in many interactive ways, and can also link to a 2D webpage or 3D destination. The image right shows how giveaways work:

Examples

• A musician in MySpace Music has a live performance space to interact with fans and organize virtual concerts, show music videos on a virtual television and give away songs in a 3D widget.
• A car company on Facebook has a 3D racetrack and give away a 3D car that users can make their color of choice then drive around in 3D. The car has a link back to the company’s website.
• A fashion designer with a 3D catwalk can host their own fashion shows and give away avatars wearing virtual versions of their own designs.
• A film or TV company’s 3D space is a cinema showing short films, trailers or television shows. They give away virtual popcorn to their moviegoers or a 3D plasma flat-screen television showing their latest offerings.

Which brands, advertisers or businesses do you think will be first? Please feel free to leave a comment below.

Sign up on http://www.exitreality.com/ for the beta or feel free to contact us to talk ideas and partnership opportunities.

Since the launch last week of our Beta sign up program and being featured in TechCrunch (ExitReality Turns Social Network Profiles Into 3D Spaces) we have had many requests for further information on how the platform works with users’ social network profiles and more importantly, what people can do within their 3D space.

ExitReality instantly gives every social network user their own 3D place that features all of their current content, automatically creating more than 200 million 3D virtual worlds.

Free, as well as easy to use and decorate, users can meet and chat to friends in their own or other people’s 3D spaces.

Anyone can quickly enhance a 3D place without the need for complicated 3D software. And just like everyone’s profile in 2D, users’ 3D spaces are unique through a combination of their own content (videos, photos, music and wall posts amongst other things) and ExitReality’s unique decorating feature.

Within ExitReality you can choose the look and feel of your space and then decorate it with anything from standard household objects and furniture through to objects including drink vending machines, exotic cars, 80’s style arcade games and snow globes. ExitReality users can choose from a ‘whole world’ of decorations.

The image below shows a before and after view of how a typical social network profile, in this case a Bebo profile, looks using the platform.

In the above example you can see where elements of the user’s profile, like photos and background images, are imported into the 3D environment.

Here the profile owner can then move, enhance, copy or change the various objects included within the room template… or choose a new look entirely.

ExitReality works with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, MySpace, Orkut and Friendster.

If you have any suggestions for other social networks you would like to see this platform work on, please let us know through the comments below.

You can find all the information on ExitReality including how to download the plug-in, how to navigate through virtual worlds etc… at http://www.exitreality.com or visit the Knowledgebase at http://kb.exitreality.com/