There.com Not There Any More

Venture Capital

from the changes... dept

When There.com first launched, it didn’t make much sense. They seemed to be recreating about a hundred other (failed) online virtual worlds, with the weird business model based on the idea that people would pay extra in the virtual world to own a pair of virtual Levi’s jeans. At least in other virtual worlds, people pay for things that seem useful to the game itself, and not just for fashion. Eight months after they launched apparently things weren’t looking so great, so they launched again. Still, it’s looking like there hasn’t been much “there” behind There.com. However, they’re now trying to adjust. I noted in the past that the “There Inc.” name was something of a liability, since people would spend too much time needing to explain the name, and it seems they agree. The company has raised a new round of venture funding, changed their name, changed CEOs and changed their business model. The company once known as There is no longer there, but is now Forterra Systems. The CEO is gone. The company no longer heavily promoting the virtual There world (though, it is still there), but instead, talking about selling their virtual world creating platform software to others for building games and teaching systems. In fact, they also announced a deal with the US Army to use Forterra’s software for simulation purposes. Why not just send them into There.com and let them buy virtual howitzers?