Hangout Gives Teens Their Own Online Rooms and Makes Social Networking Fun
At TechCrunch50 --
Hangout launches application that lets teens create customizable online
rooms, fully interact with their friends, branded products, and share
media experiences in an immersive 3D online environment.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) -- Building on the popularity of social networking, online games, and digital media, Hangout Industries (www.hangout.net)
unveiled the world's first casual and immersive 3D social networking
experience that allows teens and young adults to create and customize
their own virtual rooms featuring real brand-name products, and where
their friends can join them in a safe and secure environment, to hang
out and have fun together. For teens, Hangout helps My Space become My
Place.
At Hangout.net teens can build their own online room where they can hang with friends and have fun
Launched today, at the prestigious TechCrunch50 conference (http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/)
, Hangout gives teens the ability to connect and truly interact with
their friends online. On Hangout, teens interact with their friends as
they do in the offline world- whether it be watching favorite videos on
YouTube, listening to music, sharing Facebook photos, engaging with
popular brands and products that they love, playing games or making
music, or just chatting "in person". Kids can now create their own
personal 3D rooms leveraging real goods and clothes and hang out with
their friends in their own spaces. Hangout combines the immersive
nature of the Sims with the personalization of MySpace and the security
and privacy of Facebook.
Hangout Availability: Try it You'll Love It
Previewed at its TechCrunch50 public debut, Hangout is now open for sign-ups for a select number of private beta testers at www.hangout.net, which will be followed by a full public release later this fall.
Hangout: The Experience and The Company
Hangout has been built from the ground up to be a great experience for
non-technical users. Hangout runs on both PCs and Macs, supports all
major operating systems and doesn't require special graphics cards.
Users can not only customize their room but they can even build and
modify objects in their rooms including completely altering the shape
and style of furniture, and many other objects in a Hangout room.
Hangout leverages cross platform, browser-based and Web 2.0
technologies that plug-in to larger social networks (Facebook, MySpace,
etc) and Web content so that users never have to leave their profile
pages to interact in their Hangout rooms.
Pano Anthos, CEO of Hangout stated "Virtual worlds have been in the
public eye since the beginning of the decade when TIME Magazine
featured Sims Online on its cover. Hangout members get a far more
immersive, synchronous and realistic experience than the 2D+ worlds of
Gaia or Habbo, and without any of the privacy and usability concerns
that come from trying to download and use virtual worlds like Second
Life."
Hangout has already attracted youth-focused brands that want to make
sure that Hangout users can interact with their favorite products in
the room including AllPosters.com, Cardboard Robot, Café Bustelo
Coffee, Celsius, Dank Squad, Dim Mak Records, Dim Mak Collection,
Imperial Motion, IS eyewear, Milo, Monster Energy, Mumz the Werd, Neff,
Ogio, Pioneer, Pony, Rockwell Time watches, Sessions, Skullcandy,
Suunto Watches, Triumvir, Zappos.com, and Zuriick. Colin Brickley,
Director of Sports and Entertainment Marketing at Pony commented
"Hangout's visual quality lets us present our brand online, with no
quality compromises. If we can get kids to put our shoes on their
virtual selves, they are that much closer to buying our physical
product. We can't afford not to be in Hangout."
A number of tastemakers including trendsetting DJs, musicians, pro
athletes, and other trendsetters will be releasing their rooms in the
near future. Some of these trendsetters include bands like Chromeo and
Datarock; DJs Irie, Hapa, and Junior Sanchez; soccer stars Stuart
Holden and Leslie Osborne, and extreme sports faves like snowboarders
Drew Fuller and Kimmy Fasani; as well as skateboarders Lauren Perkins
and Greg Lutzka. Fredrik Saroea of the band Datarock said "We're active
on MySpace and have 48,000 friends, but there is nothing for them
really to do on our profile page. Hangout adds a visual dimension to
social networks and websites that enables communication, commerce and
interactivity on a level that no one else has touched. It's fun for us
and our fans to use and totally takes the cake." Be sure to visit www.hangout.net for "new construction" from these trailblazers.
Based in Boston, USA, Hangout's top notch team blends the talents of
game developers with Web programmers to create fun, virtual experiences
that are immersive but very easy to use. Hangout is backed by funding
from digital media-savvy venture capital firms Highland Capital
Partners and Polaris Ventures. Bob Davis, General Partner at Highland
and former Founder and CEO of Lycos commented "Hangout makes social
networking immersive and fun --addressing a huge untapped opportunity
for online experiences and activity." Mike Hirshland, General Partner
at Polaris Ventures added "the level of customization in Hangout takes
self expression to a new level. With a market of 80 million teens and
young adults in the US alone, the possibilities are tremendous."
TechCrunch50 Winner
The first public debut of Hangout takes place today at the prestigious
TechCruch50 event in San Francisco. In its selection as a TechCrunch50
finalist, Hangout was one of just 10 companies selected in the
uber-competitive "consumer" category. To be selected for TechCrunch50
2008, Hangout stood out among the competition of over 1000 applicants
from 49 countries worldwide.
About TechCrunch50
Founded in 2007 by leading technology blog TechCrunch and entrepreneur
Jason Calacanis, the TechCrunch50 conference provides a platform for
early-stage, and frequently unfunded, companies to launch for the first
time to the technology industry's most influential venture capitalists,
corporations, angel investors, fellow entrepreneurs and the
international media. Companies are selected to participate exclusively
on merit. TechCrunch50 is supported by corporate sponsors Google,
Microsoft, MySpace, Salesforce, MSN Money, Symantec, Thomson Reuters
and Yahoo!, as well as venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital,
Mayfield Fund, Clearstone Venture Partners, Charles River Ventures,
Founders Fund, Perkins Coie and Fenwick & West.
About Hangout
Hangout Industries is a venture-backed start-up in Boston that is
combining the best of the Web and 3D features to create cool new user
experiences for teenagers and college students. Hangout users get a far
more immersive, synchronous and realistic (read mainstream) experience
than the 2D+ worlds, without any of the privacy, usability or
scalability concerns that come from trying to download and use virtual
worlds like Second Life. Hangout leverages cross platform,
browser-based, and Web 2.0 technologies that plug-in seamlessly into
Facebook and MySpace to provide kids with a natural on-ramp to far more
engaging and immersive social and media experiences with their friends.
www.hangout.net.
HANGOUT, Hangout.net, and H Hangout.net are service marks of Hangout
Industries, Inc. All other trademarks or service marks are property of
their respective owners.
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