Shawn Fanning To Launch Rupture

Shawn Fanning To Launch Rupture, an Online Gaming Community (from Business Week)

Shawn Fanning of Napster fame says he plans within the next month or so to launch Rupture,
a virtual social community for online gamers. He raised seed money from
a group of investors, including Ron Conway and Joi Ito. 

Rupture was inspired by Fanning's newfound love of online gaming. During the past year and a half, he's become a big fan of World of Warcraft,
joining a guild and climbing up the ranks of players.

WoWをIT業界のゴルフと称した人がいますが、まさにそんな感じですねえ。。。どこで誰に会うかわからない。

The more he
played, though, the more he became frustrated with how hard it is to
communicate with other players, organize game playing together and
learn about other gamers' identities, online and offline.

激同。

Ruptureのサービス概要は以下の通り。

I haven't seen the service but Fanning explained it to me this way:
Using an add on or a software download, Rupture taps into the game to
automatically pull together character names, profiles, and resources,
and publish them on a personalized site. Rupture will also pull
together stats to create individual and guild rankings and provide a
place for guilds to organize their playing. As Rupture tracks each
member's playing over time, these personalized profiles evolve. And
players will be able to chat in groups or with other individuals and
download other addons and game demos.

ここ数ヶ月、WoWをやっていない。。。のですがちょっと復活してみてRuptureも使ってみようと思います。