Press Release Body: ROCKETON is a new, downloadable avatar service that lets you use the entire Web as your virtual world. You create an avatar, and let it journey with you as you surf the Web. Currently ROCKETON is in private alpha, but I got early access to the site in order to check it out. Below is my journey as a ROCKETON avatar: Hour 1 Downloaded the ROCKETON application. Easy, quick. I found myself on the ROCKETON launch pad, where all the newbies come to play. Here, you customize your avatar, and finish registering your account. The custom options were pretty basic in terms of the type of outfit I could choose, or the hairstyle I wanted, and that’s when I realized why most of the avatars on the launchpad were wearing the same thing. Details like color, however, can be changed. Even though it was quick and easy to set up, my first impression of ROCKETON was reminiscent of my first experience with Second Life, when you’re left in a virtual environment full of users that are as clueless as you are. That soon changed.
After getting my avatar customized, I noticed a sleek menu at the bottom left corner of my browser. This had just about everything I needed to play with ROCKETON. Here, you can “hide” your avatar and the ROCKETON menu, see the top sites where avatars are visiting, view all of your info (profile, rank, points, preferences, etc.), change your avatar, access your store, buy points, trade items, view friends and play games with other users. Hour 2 Clicking on a few avatars that were walking around the launchpad, I noticed that I could invite them to do things like play games, private chat, or even go on a date. Avatars can chat publicly, though there are private chat options that will carry throughout browser tabs if you happen to leave the room. If you’d like to go to another Web site with an avatar, invite them to meet you at another URL. If you’d like to let yourself be enticed by the wormholes ROCKETON has placed across the Web, jump on in (think StumbleUpon “surprise me”). Hour 3 After realizing that wormholes often take you to places where ROCKETON has placed gifts and prizes, I ended up spending far too much time surfing the Web vicariously through my avatar. At Coca Cola’s Web site, I found a vending machine that gives you a soda. Drag this from your Stuff folder to any Web site where your avatar is present, and it will explode. It’s a fun little interaction that makes socializing with avatars on the Web that much more fun.
You can also give away gifts, and if you barter with avatars beforehand, you can even wager a trade. Currently there’s no secure system in place by ROCKETON to control these trades, so you do run the risk of giving without receiving, but a more secure transaction system is in the works.
--Kristen Nicole
[Kristen Nicole covers social media and web 2.0 technologies for Mashable.com as Lead Writer]
Web Site: http://www.rocketon.com/a/
Contact Details: Address: 415 Grand Avenue, South San Francisco United States of America
2025
