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Join the virtual world and hitch a ride with Leo.

By Leo Laporte


Gertrude Stein once said of her childhood home, "There is no there there." But at There, there's plenty of there there. There is an imaginary world that's a lot more fun to visit than are plenty of real-world places I've been. On today's show I'll take you on a tour of There.


Six years in the making, There is the brainchild of Will Harvey, a Stanford computer science Ph.D. and game developer, and Jeffrey Ventrella, an expert on artificial life from MIT's Media Lab. The two raised $33 million from a who's who list of techies, including gaming legend Trip Hawkins, Kevin Ryan, and Bruce Leak. With the money, Harvey and Ventrella built an elaborate 3-D virtual world and invited people to come and play.


You are There

There is massively multiplayer, but it's not a game like "EverQuest." It's a free-form community. There has clubs, nightly activities, contests, and races, but the chief activity in There is chatting. The avatars are surprisingly lifelike, and there are many gestures and facial expressions you can use to get your point across.


The world of There has its own economy. When you arrive, you're given 10,000 There-bucks. Be careful how you spend them. You can buy a new wardrobe or hairstyle, toys such as paint guns, hover boards, and dune buggies, and even a pet, but everything is expensive. Even a T-shirt can cost hundreds of There-bucks.


You can earn more bucks by selling your There creations, or you can buy more with a credit card. The current exchange rate is around 1,700 There-bucks for each American greenback. And There has already signed on a number of real-world designers, including Nike and Levi's, to make There items.


There lends itself to community. I rented a clubhouse for 3,000 There-bucks a week and invited my friends to stop by to pet the dog, take a hot tub, or play a brisk round of paint-ball.