Video conferencing with cardboard cutouts and random images on the walls

December 3, 2010 by Amara D. Angelica

Hey, here’s an idea: How about creating an avatar by copying a face from a photo and pasting it onto a randomly generated avatar? Then a video conferencing service could put your brand new (or old) face, along with those of your friends, into one of several rooms, where you could all chat by voice. You could even display live video from your webcam or computer on the walls.

Wacky idea, eh? Yaletown Venture Partners and a number of angel investors don’t think so. They just forked over $1.4 million in a new seed funding round to Mingleverse (which runs this service) to help expand its social network version on Facebook, says VentureBeat.

Here’s a tour explaining how it works on Facebook.

OK, wait. I’m actually getting interested in this wacky thing. Sorta like Second Life without the complex user interface and bizarre avatars. OK, I just created a MingleRoom (that’s it over there on the left  — well, I didn’t actually create it; it just appeared automagically), with a MinglePro account (25 people max), and I scheduled a Mingle for tonight (Friday) at 9 PM PST. (I have no idea what I’m doing, really.)

Now what? If only I knew someone who was signed up with Mingleverse…. Anyone? Send me an invite request and a link to your Facebook page. (Here’s mine.)