| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | July, 2006 |
| Headquarters | Brescia, Italy |
| Key people | Pierluigi Casolari Edoardo Turelli |
| Industry | Virtual World industry |
| Revenue | advertising |
| Slogan | Share Your Virtual Life |
| Website | http://www.koinup.com/ |
Koinup is an image and video hosting website, web portal and online community for virtual worlds users. It is used both as a photo and video repository platform and as tool to share virtual worlds screenshots, photographs and machinima. As of November 2008, it claimed to host more than 100 thousands stuffs uploaded by its members and reach about 100 thousands visitors monthly.[1]
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Koinup was developed by Koinup srl, a Brescia, Italy-based company created in July 2006. The two founders are Pierluigi Casolari and Edoardo Turelli, which serve respectively as CEO and Chief technical officer. After a period in beta version, in the first half of 2007 Koinup upgraded the service to the official version. The emphasis of the website is around the concept of “Share your Virtual Life”. Together with GamerDNA and other websites, Koinup offer a social networking platform for all virtual world inhabitants [2][3]
Some analysts are observing that social networks for online games are part of a new trend in the social network scenery.[4][5]
Although, Koinup claim to be open to all virtual worlds and mmorpgs, it seems to be a sort of predilection for the areas of social worlds as Second Life, IMVU, The Sims Online and OpenSimulator and the major part of the members seems to upload contents from these worlds.
Koinup is a free service. Members can upload up to 1,5 gigabyte of photos and videos. Currently, Koinup doesn't support a premium account for paid users. Uploaders have the chance to add tags to their entries and create photo or videos galleries. They have also the chance to create widgets with their contents or share their Koinup stuffs outside the website by using a set of Gigya-powered sharing tools.[6]
Koinup features also some tools aimed at creating a bridge between the virtual worlds and the website. These tools allow users to interact with their Koinup account, while they are in virtual worlds. Particularly, members can send postcards directly from the clients to their Koinup galleries, without leaving the virtual worlds.
One of the most popular features on the website is the Koinup Places Section. Koinup Places allow users to geotagging virtual worlds locations and upload them on Koinup; the aim of the project is the creation of a user generated directory of the best places hosted in virtual worlds. According to a recent publications, it seems that more than 1000 virtual places have been already suggested by the Koinup Community.[7]
One of the main challenges faced by Koinup is the issue of interoperability between virtual worlds.[8]
Right now, the virtual world scene is made up by numerous walled gardens which are stand-alone and miss to communicate each others. At the moment, there aren't standardized tools for move and share the Avatar identity from a world to another, nor is there the chance to interact with more virtual worlds from a single dashboard. An open source "Education Grid" approach is in the pipeline (The Open File Formats Technology Working Group (OFF.TWG) is responsible for defining, evolving and maintaining open, platform-neutral file formats that enable learning objects and experiences to be seamlessly deployed across Immersive Education technology platforms "Create Once, Experience Everywhere"). One of the goals of Koinup is to allow users to manage with a single account both the contents and the friends they have in various virtual worlds.
Koinup published 3D Wallpapers application in Nokia Ovi Store distribution channel on April 22, 2010.
Quoting their description:
3D Wallpapers brings the AMAZING Avatar Art Collections of Koinup to your Nokia phone! The application allows you to download[s] tons of wallpapers. You can set as wallpapers wonderful images of virtual worlds (Second Life, The Sims, World of Warcraft), avatars, city landscapes, fantasy images and breathtaking 3D artworks. Moreover, each month, the editors of 3D Wallpapers will add new categories and new photos for your enjoyment!