Napster founder’s next project: a “WoW MySpace”

The GOlden Boy has plans for WoW.After upending the entire music industry with Napster back before the bubble burst, founder and whiz kid Shawn Fanning‘s eyes are set on upending another world altogether: the World of Warcraft virtual community. Nope, this doesn’t involve anything about music, so you Orcs and Elves and Humans and Undead won’t have to shell gold for in-game MP3 players or something.

Reported by Gamespot, and according to BusinessWeek Online, Shawn is working on “Rupture”, “a virtual social community for online gamers.” In other (Gamespot’s) words, a “MySpace for Azeroth”, although the concept could later on be adapted and extended to other MMO games. Rupture will allow players to instant message each other’s friends while playing, organize themselves on the fly, track their guild stats, and so forth – okay, it’s a MySpace + IM right in the WoW game world.

Blizzard was unavailable for comment, says Gamespot.

No other details were revealed, so all we have to go on is the MySpace allusion. Shawn intends to unveil Rupture sometime in the near future. Somehow, we wonder if some WoW modder, upon reading this, now intends to beat Fanning to the punch. And speaking of Napster, at least we’re not talking about Second Life‘s CopyBot here.

The GOlden Boy has plans for WoW.After upending the entire music industry with Napster back before the bubble burst, founder and whiz kid Shawn Fanning‘s eyes are set on upending another world altogether: the World of Warcraft virtual community. Nope, this doesn’t involve anything about music, so you Orcs and Elves and Humans and Undead won’t have to shell gold for in-game MP3 players or something.

Reported by Gamespot, and according to BusinessWeek Online, Shawn is working on “Rupture”, “a virtual social community for online gamers.” In other (Gamespot’s) words, a “MySpace for Azeroth”, although the concept could later on be adapted and extended to other MMO games. Rupture will allow players to instant message each other’s friends while playing, organize themselves on the fly, track their guild stats, and so forth – okay, it’s a MySpace + IM right in the WoW game world.

Blizzard was unavailable for comment, says Gamespot.

No other details were revealed, so all we have to go on is the MySpace allusion. Shawn intends to unveil Rupture sometime in the near future. Somehow, we wonder if some WoW modder, upon reading this, now intends to beat Fanning to the punch. And speaking of Napster, at least we’re not talking about Second Life‘s CopyBot here.

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