Back when pirating music was in vogue, a guy named Shawn Fanning made a little program called Napster. It enabled P2P file sharing and piracy to skyrocket in less than a year. So after Shawn sold Napster, got some cash, and got sued, he apparently sat down and got really into this game you may have heard of: World of Warcraft.
Fanning is now working on a social networking site called Rupture, which is named after a Rogue talent found in WoW. The concept is sound and bringing WoW players together outside the game is a great idea, but what does Fanning want to do exactly?
He said the following about his idea:
“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 add-ons and game demos.”
Sounds like an improved version of Thottbot mixed with MySpace. I’ll bite, for now.