Playdom Takes Over Metaplace

Mountain View, CA-based social gaming company Playdom announced yesterday that it has acquired Metaplace, a San Diego-based startup that built social virtual worlds software and introduced two Facebook social games, Island Life and My Vineyard, earlier this year. Metaplace co-founder and CEO John Donham will run Playdom’s new San Diego office, according to the announcement, while co-founder and president Raph Koster and several other staff will move to Playdom’s Mountain View headquarters. As Bruce reported, Metaplace closed its consumer-facing virtual worlds site last December after failing to generate enough business. The terms of this week’s acquisition weren’t disclosed; Metaplace had raised at least $9.4 million from a group of investors that included Charles River Ventures, Crescendo Ventures, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/