Virtual Worlds, also referred to as metaverses, are not created equal. The choices of offerings and the level of constraints vary significantly from one platform to the other. Each one also has its own advantages and disadvantages. At present, Avatrian focuses its primary efforts on three leading metaverse platforms...Second Life, Entropia Universe, and Active Worlds. This decision was influenced by the relative richness of these on-line communities, the stability of its in-world economy, and the progressiveness of its intellectual property regime.

1. Fresh branding opportunities
2. Participation in an economy of more than $US 500,000,000 per year
3. Access to a demographic market that is difficult to reach
4. Contribute user-generated content in the fastest growing new media platforms
5. Develop a new outlet for creative expression
6. Provide an educational tool with remote and distributed capabilities
7. Lower cost of business operations in prototyping, product evaluation, and feedback gathering
8. To play, interact, be entertained, and escape

	Second Life	Entropia Universe	Active Worlds
Creator	Linden Labs	MindArk	Activeworlds, Inc.
Inception	2003	2002	1996
Location	San Francisco, CA	Goteborg, Sweden	Newburyport, MA
Number of Users	13,118,466	574,298	> 2,000,000
Growth Rate	20% per month
In-world Currency	Linden $	PED
Size of Economy	$US 1,908,742/day
Companies with Presence	American Apparel, Reuters, Toyota	Vexed Generation Clothing, 21st Century Fine Art	MTV, Wells Fargo

OpenSim, Nurien, Blue Mars, HiPiHi, Multiverse and VastPark are other metaverse platforms that also take part in the 3D online virtual world industry.

If you would like to immerse yourself more in the topic of Virtual Worlds, these books can serve as excellent primers: