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Ridemakerz Builds a Virtual World For Boys Filled With Its Toy Cars

- 16 hours and 35 minutes ago

Larry Andreini thinks he can take on Pixar. The founder and CEO of Ridemakerz, a rapidly growing chain of stores where boys can custom-build their own toy cars, is building a virtual world for his 6-to-12-year-old customers and their cars. This virtual world is in closed beta right now, and will launch early next year. So will Pixar’s World of Cars and startup Webcarzz (here’s some good background).

There is a gap on the Web between Webkinz and Club Penguin and the more adult social networks of MySpace, Facebook and beyond, particularly for boys. Other than Pirates of the Carribean Online, there is not much out there yet. Andreini wants to parlay the loyalty of his customers into a virtual world where they can design and play with the exact same cars they can buy in his stores. Making that connection between the virtual and the real, even if it’s just a toy, is where he thinks he’ll have a leg up on the competition. The virtual world he is building is also pretty advanced and goes way beyond being a slick brochure for his products, although it is that as well. Kids don’t have to buy a car to play in the virtual world, but the experience is better if they do.

The Ridemakerz virtual world is being designed by the Electric Sheep Company, which has a lot of experience designing virtual experiences for corporate clients in Second Life. But this virtual world will be entirely browser-based, built on top of its Webflock technology platform (which I wrote about in July). I was given a preview of the virtual world last week.

Before I get into the virtual world, it helps to understand the experience in a Ridemakerz retail store. Boys come in and pick one of 70 different car body types and paint schemes. These are scale plastic-mold replicas of real-world cars that Ridemakerz licenses from GM, Ford, BMW, and other car companies. Then the boy tricks out his ride by picking the wheels, hubcaps, a chassis, sounds, and other options. He takes all the parts to a pit and then builds his car right there in the store, and then his mom or dad pays for it. A basic model costs only $27.50, but the options add up and a single car with radio control can cost $120.

Andreini opened his first store in June, 2007, and now there are a dozen across the country. His first store in Myrtle Beach, SC hit $1 million in sales 87 days after it launched. This year, that same store hit $1 million in sales 53 days after June 1. He’s raised $23 million to date from Norm Pozez, whose father founded Payless Shoes, and Build-A-Bear Workshop. Build-A-Bear, which operates a retail chain with a similar concept around building teddy bears, is also a strategic operational partner.

Ridemakerz offers online sales on its Website right now, but they are pretty minimal. Andrieni estimates the e-commerce business will bring in about $250,000 this year. But he plans to invest $3 million to $4 million a year in his new virtual world. He predicts:

I think the virtual experience is going to dwarf our real-world experience.

The virtual world is a combination of a social network, video games, and a complex inventory system. Boys can design their own virtual cars online just like they can in the store. Electric Sheep took CAD files of all the body designs and measured all the parts with micrometers to render how each car looks. Then they converted that into Flash using 3D Studio Max and Papervision3D. There are 649 million different combinations, and each one can be made into a real car and bought, so Electric Sheep had to figure out a way to make sure that only parts that really fit together could be created virtually. Depending on what parts a boy picks, it will affect the performance of his ride.

Alternatively, a child who buys a car at a store can enter the unique Ridez Identification Number (RIN) number printed on each one at checkout and he will get a virtual replica of that exact design. So he can play with the same car at home and online.

Inside the virtual world, each child’s avatar is his car. He can drive around and see the cars of other members who are online. There is no text chatting (for child safety reasons), but each car has different “Zmotes” that get cooler the more points that are acquired. The Zmotes start with things like puffs and smiley faces and graduate to explosions and lightening bolts. The roads in the virtual world lead to different activities, including a junkyard crane video game and a pitstop crew game that teaches time management.

Sibley Verbeck, CEO of Electric Sheep says:

We are trying to take the best parts of virtual worlds, MMOs, kids worlds , and bring that out on the Web.

Once Ridemkarz launches this basic version, it can keep adding activities and destinations inside the virtual world. There are already plans for user-generated content, such as letting boys design their own race courses and then race their virtual cars on them. In the future, boys also may be able to create their own outlandish designs that won’t necessarily be buildable.

It is an ambitious effort from an unlikely startup. Can they go up against the Pixars of the world and win the race to create the first truly successful virtual world for boys? Or will this be seen as nothing more than a way to hook kids on buying and upgrading their Ridemakerz cars?

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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micrometers,chassis,mold,performances,adults

Snark Blocker - Mike Zeck’s G.I. Joe Covers!

Comics Should Be Good!

- 17 hours and 45 minutes ago

Prepare yourself - this much testosterone may be bad for your health.

Otherwise, enjoy!

At first, Zeck was just mixed in with other cover artists. Right from the get go, though, his covers were extremely dynamic with interesting angles and layouts.

Then. however, Zeck began his most famous stretch of covers, drawing the covers for issues #37-57, with only one John Byrne cover (for #50) mixed in.

As you can see, almost all his covers are striking in either one of two ways - either they are dynamic action shots or they are dramatic looking cool poses.

There are a few slight duds mixed in there, of course (the cover for #50 stands out, I believe, in a negative sense - it does not seem all that dramatic for a 50th issue), but for the most part, he was on top of things every month.

During this time, he even helped launch a new G.I. Joe title - G.I. Joe Special Missions, where his action covers were definitely warranted…

Some of the later Special Missions covers seem a bit on the rough side, but still, very cool covers.

Zeck also did the cover for one of the G.I. Joe Yearbooks…

Zeck actually stayed on the covers of the main book for nine issues past #57, but man, the change in the book’s direction did not suit Zeck’s style at ALL.

An armored Cobra Commander? A guy in a Hawkman get-up? Some pirate guy on a hovercraft? Zeck did what he could, but this was no longer his wheelhouse…

The exception, of course, is this three-parter where Zeck got to draw what he drew best - dynamic military action scenes…

#61, in particular, is one of the best covers he did on the book.

But then it was back to the sillier plots…

When Zeck is drawing stuff in outer space - you know you’ve gone too far.

He got one last cool cover and he was done with the book, after forty-four awesome covers!

As always, thanks to the Grand Comic Book Database for the covers!

And thanks, of course, to the great Mike Zeck for these covers!

1 Comments

At December 4, 2008, T. wrote:

Bob McLeod is definitely Zeck's best inker.

Did Kerry Gammill ink issue #56's cover?

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exceptions,comic,layouts,poses,exception

Ulrich - Message pirate

Firefox Add-On Alerts Amazon Shoppers to Illegal Content

Today @ PC World

- 18 hours and 28 minutes ago

"Pirates of the Amazon" points shoppers to free--and illegal--versions of products they're about to buy.br style=clear: both;/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:57859f7db5da8049da34e522ba9a21b3:8yflhVvvzMEGtjHdUIgTaYjsS0TxINXSubqRYMRJj9A1b8IUQWiDACEObdvGqIzuz3GwZh7LDeYY'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:8d0f3ad9a467bde1360326cbbf5a42be:lOigFHPcWevnUu34aYj%2BhhV9pnuN2rtqxDMod0yXwue44nG1fxkpgvaseqhzoJkQJcQNeJLeMx5q'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:1cdbc9ac04fa1d00f8bcb7f0d16f8f36:LptwoBfvlPVNiygprhghva0xLCq0VkONqdX9MgP6ahqWFrMeywP1mVnFFgfzn5zct2wqqCJA5jotsA%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Slashdot' alt='Add to Slashdot' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/slashdot.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:88301fa35ccba8353071a10484fcb545:%2BDkm0sc4%2BAojbDsDlZdsz9EgpTSQQT2Zu5ZtyN39xHO1JMMHfg8F8z5Q%2FyVQP4rfhde%2B8w7w9s4i'img border='0' title='Email this Article' alt='Email this Article' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/emailthis.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:b84191b65e87eb830adac80c5de1595c:NkA3qALDY6YbwBGDnE8vogqyWXyDYPejr%2BFPyxjTofKoo7CQlze64rU%2FvMw9dwoYCLmcTS1Q0p9yhw%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to StumbleUpon' alt='Add to StumbleUpon' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/stumbleit.gif'//a br style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=7ec2c0a40d330d1b0a7d01f43c759eeep=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=7ec2c0a40d330d1b0a7d01f43c759eeep=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=7ec2c0a40d330d1b0a7d01f43c759eee style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

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amazon,digg,slashdot,images,reddit

Deux Australiens sous les verrous pour diffusion de contenu illégal

Le Danemark persiste dans sa chasse au site The Pirate Bay

New Firefox extension turns Amazon.com into illegal free-for-all (Josh Lowensohn/Webware.com)

Somalie : un cargo yéménite relâché « sans rançon »

[App Store Release] The Corsair

Une extension pour Firefox permet de pirater films et musique sur Amazon

Online auctions remain piracy problem for Microsoft

Coppers swoop on P2P pirates

Anime Distributors Learn That Fansubbers Are Telling Them What The Market Wants

Techdirt

- 23 hours and 31 minutes ago

We've discussed a few times how the distributors of Japanese anime have often had something of a love-hate affair with "fansubbers" -- fans who take the original videos in Japan and subtitle them in foreign languages for fans in other countries. A few years ago, we noted that rather than set loose the legal hounds on fansubbers, many anime companies a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051129/1036202.shtml"embraced the fansubbers/a and used them to learn where there were strong potential market openings for foreign distribution. It was like free market research. On top of that, many realized that the fansubs helped a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040810/1322250_F.shtml"increase demand/a for the authorized product. Unfortunately, a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071126/182202.shtml"not all/a anime distributors have seen things the same way, but many have. br /br / a href="http://slashdot.org/~ruin20/comments"Matt/a writes in to tell us about the case of the a href="http://www.dattebayo.com/pr/100" target="_new"Dattebayo fansub group/a, which has been doing rapid, high quality releases of certain popular anime titles. The company behind the anime has never bothered them. Rather than try to shut them down, the US licensee of the series has decided to put up its own ifree/i subtitled versions, knowing that if it tries to put significant restrictions on them, it will never work. The group is actually charging people for a week, right after the shows air in Japan (rather than the typical long wait), but then will offer it free. In response, the fansub group is going to stop creating their own versions, noting they only did so in order to watch the videos in a reasonable time frame. Once again, despite what some in the entertainment industry claim, we're seeing that you absolutely ican/i compete with so-called "pirates."br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081130/2124212974.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081130/2124212974.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081130/2124212974op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=02745c180b93b279a0247b5f5afb831ap=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=02745c180b93b279a0247b5f5afb831ap=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=02745c180b93b279a0247b5f5afb831a" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=cswno"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=cswno" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/474530284" height="1" width="1"/

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animes,subtitle,email,hounds,borders

Pirates pee on Amazon's MP3 parade

MovieX BitTorrent Tracker Busted By Australian Police

TorrentFreak

- 1 days ago

MovieX, a very large BitTorrent site which made the headlines last year for its controversial tracker policy, has been shut down by Australian police. The site, thought to have as many as 400,000 users, is being blamed for the ‘transfer’ of 14 million movies and TV shows. So far, two people have been arrested.

Moviex Leeches From The BitTorrent Community Last year, semi-private BitTorrent site MovieX hit the headlines after it was accused of diverting upload bandwidth from users of The Pirate Bay, to its own tracker. Non-members of MovieX were allowed to upload to MovieX members but were not allowed to download from them. This move wasn’t appreciated by a large proportion of the BitTorrent community.

Today, the site has bigger things to worry about. A press release from AFACT, (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) has proclaimed the death of a huge site, but stopped short of naming it.

TorrentFreak can now exclusively reveal that the site in question was MovieX. The domain currently displays this message:

We are temporarily offline.

Currently there is NO ETA AVAILABLE

@ADMINISTRATORS: PLEASE CONTACT DEV0 ASAP! ASK AROUND OTHER ADMINS IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH ME.

According to Australian Federal Police who shut down the site following an AFACT investigation, two Brisbane men from the same family - a 21 year-old and a 27 year-old (thought to be brothers) were arrested yesterday.

A bank account containing around AUS$54,000 (US $35,000) was frozen after the police alleged the money was proceeds from the site. Investigators close to the inquiry claim the site generated around AUS$10,000 (US $6,450) each month, with many users donating $10 a month for VIP access to direct-download material, which was separate from the site’s BitTorrent tracker. Other bank accounts connected to the site are currently under investigation. Computer equipment was also seized with a storage capacity of 2 terabytes.

“BitTorrent is a legitimate and efficient software for sharing files but, like any tool, it can be misused,” noted Neil Gane, AFACT’s Director of Operations.

Andrew Traucki who directed the Aussie movie Black Water has been getting in on the action, “applauding” the closure of the site. “Being a low budget film I didn’t get paid much and hoped to make some money for all my effort from the films’ sales. The fact that Black Water had been pirated and was online within days of being finished is upsetting. How are Australian film producers like me meant to make a living from our films if people pirate the film and watch it for free?”

However, although the movie was available for download via MovieX, things probably aren’t as bad as Traucki is now making out. As recently as August this year, Traucki said that he was delighted with the success of the movie, telling DVDindustry, “We wanted to make a film with international appeal and obviously we’ve succeeded,” going on to note that the movie had enjoyed “a remarkable sales ride”.

Penalties for commercial copyright crimes in Australia can amount to $60,000 and 5 years in jail for each offense.