Hottest Virtual Hangout Growing Even Bigger

IMVU.com is back in the news again, with $10 million of financing from Best Buy’s corporate venture-capital group. IMVU is the 3D virtual community (picture a virtual pickup bar, but filled with teenagers and adults all anonymously guised as perfect looking people) that has grown to more than 30 million users. It’s literally one of the largest of its kind.

Many of you remember an article that David and I wrote last June after diving into this virtual world and experiencing it firsthand. After two hours of navigating our newly created avatar through this world of cybersmut… we had seen enough. The site is nothing more than a virtual pick up place. Nobody is who they say they are, and morals are nowhere to be found. That’s probably why we titled our article:

The Hottest Virtual Teenage Hangout… A Little Too “Hot”
A Virtual Pick Up Joint Where Authenticity is Scarce

Check out that article, not only to see our research about the site, but for a detailed description of what we encountered personally.

Here it is six months later and the site has grown by another 10 million users and with 10 million more dollars to spend on development. I shudder at the possibilities.

Sigh.

(ht to Anastasia at YPulse for the new article)

About Jonathan McKee

president of The Source for Youth Ministry, is the author of numerous books including the brand new Candid Confessions of an Imperfect Parent, Ministry By Teenagers, Connect: Real Relationships in a World of Isolation, and the award winning book Do They Run When They See You Coming? He speaks and trains at camps, conferences, and events across North America, and provides free resources for youth workers internationally on his website, TheSource4YM.com.
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