Shawn Fanning To Launch Rupture, an Online Gaming Community

You go guys!

this idea is so so ... but who knows, fans...

You wrote in this post: "that's unfortunately still behind the firewall." It's not behind a firewall, it's behind a paywall. Hope this helps.

Just wait until John Fanning gets his hands on it. .... fffffffffftt (air going out).

This idea is great, it leverages a huge and growing market, identifies an unmet need for social interaction. Execution is everything but I expect this to go far.

I don't see anything new here. There are already dozens of tools and websites for players in games, particularly World of Warcraft. I can think of half a dozen profile sites off the top of my head, and there's tons of guild portal software out there.

Lots of those sites are garbage though. Or they lack many of the features he's promising in Rupture. I know of no site that provides an all-in-one service for character tracking, guild management, social networking, AND a unique and possibly very cool ranking system. Name me any guild management website that lets you easily compare and rank different guilds gear, achievements, etc. It can be done with different programs, but that is a pain for the end user. I'm hoping Rupture is well executed cause if not, there is no reason to leave the many other sites that already exist.

After seeing this post and validating Mark Marvelli's comments of:

"There are already dozens of tools and websites for players in games, particularly World of Warcraft. I can think of half a dozen profile sites off the top of my head, and there's tons of guild portal software out there."

and then doing a deeper crawl to validate Sandoz comments of "I know of no site that provides an all-in-one service...", there is another although infant or inconclusive competitor trailing rupture.com.

At mmosocial.com (http://www.mmosocial.com), they have an under construction type page with some early information. The funny thing is they use the word "rupture" to throw off the balance and hopes to compete with Shawn Fanning's Rupture. This will be interesting as to what the folk's at MMO Social have to provide and whether they truly live up to what they are claiming, more than just World of Warcraft - a narrow minded approach by Rupture IMHO.

Either way, they will both be successful as people tend to jump from service to service to try out the differences. Once a gamer finds what will benefit them most to have any advantage or where their friends are located, they tend to stick with that site until those relationships jump ship or needs are no longer met.