Alphatown, China’s Hippest Virtual City and Social Game

Alphatown is a social network and virtual community created in real-time by its users. It was developed by Douban – now China’s fifth largest SNS – and launched on September 1. It’s now in public beta, and represents an innovative attempt to go both beyond conventional social networks, and to monetize Douban with its own virtual currency.

When you login to Alphatown, the interface works like an online map, just like Google’s or Baidu’s. But Alphatown is not a real place. You can use the W-A-S-D or arrow keys to move through the city, exploring its shops and streets. You can rent a room, set-up or visit shops, take the subway, or just simply stroll along the street. It’s kinda like what we do in reality. But note that this isn’t Second Life, with amazing graphics and first-person viewpoints.

The aim of Alphatown, then, is not to replicate your life on the web. Essentially, it is a new kind of SNS, unlike Facebook, Renren, or Twitter – though it has parallels with some of the social games that users of Facebook, Renren, and Sina Weibo like to use. Let me be your guide to this curious city:

Every street (pictured top) works like a public chatroom. Conversations are viewed in the form of chat bubbles that appear, just like you “heard” it on the street. It may be hard to strike up a conversation with somebody in reality, but in Alphatown the experience is less awkward as you can see their thoughts and messages, and connect with users you are interested in (pictured above).

Shops (pictured above) in Alphatown don’t sell anything at this early stage, but in future shop-owners will be able to sell virtual items. Shopkeepers can put pictures and articles in the shop. It works a bit like a blog, but things become interesting when these shops are neatly lined up along the street. For example, there is a street called Diagon Alley where there are Harry Potter themed shops with names like Three Broomsticks, Flourish and Blotts, and the Leaky Cauldron. You can set up a shop by paying about 25 douyou, the Douban-created virtual currency in Alphatown.

Dormitories are on the opposite side of the street to the shops. You can rent an empty apartment in a street of your choice. Right now it’s free to do so until the virtual currency becomes properly exchangable. Apartments are like microblogs where you can tweet.

Yang Bo, founder of Douban, told DoNews recently that:

Alphatown is a very diverse, vibrant city, and there exists much possibility for developing business models in the future. The future direction of Alphatown, whether it’s a game or a virtual community, depends on the users.