Wonderland reports that Shawn Fanning, creator of peer-to-peer filesharing site Napster, has announced Rupture, a kind of "MyWoW" or social networking space for players of MMOG World of Warcraft. From an article in Business Week:
Using an add on or a software download, Rupture taps into the game to automatically pull together character names, profiles, and resources, and publish them on a personalized site. Rupture will also pull together stats to create individual and guild rankings and provide a place for guilds to organize their playing. As Rupture tracks each member's playing over time, these personalized profiles evolve. And players will be able to chat in groups or with other individuals and download other addons and game demos.
Back in the day, I posted something about the marriage between MMOGs and social networking sites, and the resulting comments were overwhelmingly negative (to the point of causing someone very rudely to snore). Most people didn't want this at all. Then again, there weren't 7 million people in Warcraft back then. Does this announcement, and the realities of negotiating through a phenomenally huge world, change anyone's opinion?
