Cybertown (CT) (formerly Colony City) was a free (changed to pay per year in 2002), family friendly, online community. There were places (chat rooms) available either through a 2D or 3D chat environment. Users were able to have jobs within the community, earning virtual money called CC's (CityCash) that could be used to buy 3D homes and items. Each user was allowed a free 2D home and could locate it within any of a number of colonies subdivided into neighborhoods and blocks. The cost was $5.00 per month or $49.99 a year.
As of September 2011 the site's membership base declined. As of February, 2012, the domain for Cybertown and its parent company, IVN, was offline.
New web site was launched by the fans of cybertown on cybertownrevival.com
The history of this site has been discussed in detail by Nadeshda Kaneva as an illustration of the social dynamics that emerge in online communities
Engine
The Cybertown trademark image are the 3D worlds that it has. The 3D worlds run VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), which is easy to design and modify. It uses The Blaxxun Community Platform coupled with the Blaxxun Contact VRML Viewer control, to interact in 3D worlds to make it more complete and capable of having a society structure by adding social interaction between users. Citizens are allowed and encouraged to create 3D objects for use in Cybertown. All its 3D objects were created by its citizens.
History
Colony City was started in 1996 as a showcase project of Blaxxun interactive of Munich, Germany. Colony City made use of the VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), a standard for displaying 3D content, including virtual worlds and avatars, on the Web. These VRML files became shared virtual worlds using Blaxxun's award-winning multi-user server technology, enabling people from all over the world to meet and interact in rich-media environments in real-time on the Web.
Colony City society elements
Jobs
Currency
Home Ownership
Purchasable Items
Security
Rank Hierarchy
Before the merge of ColonyCity and Cybertown, ColonyCity had a massive unemployment problem which neared 90% of users unemployed, making the main purpose people came to ColonyCity was to interact with the other users. Those that were employed were most likely part of the development team or were the first people to arrive.
Midway through 1999, ColonyCity merged with Cybertown which dramatically increased the users to a few thousand. At the time Cybertown was mainly a portal site with categories of links, however ColonyCity was able to use the ideas from the categories to make 3D worlds and expand Cybertown. To allow this influx of citizens to have homes in Cybertown, new "colonies" (places to live) had to be created. This created a huge demand for jobs which in turn created a more dynamic economy and gave new objectives for people.
After the merge Cybertown expanded at a fast rate in terms of new worlds being opened and new users joining on. At this point Cybertown had a little for everyone. There were those who were just passing by, those that didn't want to do anything else but chat, and those who wanted the responsibility of volunteering and holding a job positions with numerous places for advancement. The expansion has since died down and no new 3D worlds have been created.
In 2002 Blaxxun interactive sold Cybertown to Integrated Virtual Networks who charge users a fee for membership. From direct observation, IVN's interests seemed primarily aimed at development of Silhouette technology, a video / VRML interface, when they took the reins. Cybertown members were offered a first chance to participate in Silhouette—a BETA version which did not become popular because a fee was required to use the interface—but it was never meant to be a technology solely for Cybertown use. Many have said the development of Silhouette was to be the next stage in Cybertown's development. But in this they have confused the promised NEXUS version of Cybertown, a program developed by Cybertown technicians but never completed, with IVN's Silhouette technology.