Last week I had the same experience anthropologists must have when they might have found a new species that fills a gap in the family tree of humans.
The missing link in online education has been the seamless group talk right now. You can have great 1o1 teaching over Skype and decent lectures in various online classrooms. But the interaction of a smaller group with seamless talking has been missing so far. But that might have changed now. A Canadian start up might have built the holy grail of online teaching.
I found Mingleverse during one of my searching sessions on the internet where I scan around for fresh start ups. At the first look I thought “Oh look, a new Second Life.” But after having had a closer look on the website it got interesting 
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Mingleverse is using 25+ technologies and media sharing features but their clear focus is on the voice quality. I then got in contact with them and they set up a meeting for me. And I have to say the voice quality comes very close to Skype and you know all that Skype is still my favourite tool in the teacher toolbox.
The graphic is rather basic even a bit ninetees feeling but Daniel Ruscigno, Marketer of Mingleverse told me that it will stay like this to keep the bandwidth free for the voice streaming. And the voice in the Mingleverse rooms is 3D! That means if the avatar is moving, the voice will adapt, from your right ear to the left, far away, near, behind you etc.
Imagine what this means for group lessons. You could teach part of the lesson as classic front teaching by showing a video or some slides which can be uploaded (Mingleverse is working on an interactive whiteboard, too) and then seperate your class into working groups, sending them into different corners of the classroom so that they would only hear their group conversations. And you, as the teacher can walk around and assist. Just like in real life. No, better than in real life because in Mingleverse you can take away talking controls if necessary .
A room can take up to 50 participants and they tested it saying the quality is the same from two to 50 people talking. Personally I did not test this yet.
Mingleverse has also a build in a Carbon footprint tool that shows you how much C0² you saved by giving this class online rather than travelling.
What else. You have to download a small client for the VoIP use and I got problems to stay connected to the server. They already knew about this issue and are working to fix it. The service seems to run smoothly in Canada and the US though. But hey, they are in Beta and online since August.
The avatars are based of a body you have to choose from a list and then you can upload a picture of yourself, cut out the head and paste it on the body. Really simple and similar to greeting cards from JibJab and other providers.
For companies and schools out there: Mingleverse can brand the environments, of course. Either building a new room or inserting logos for you. There will also be a white label version in the future.
There will be two payment models for this service. Model one is a monthly subscription for $9, model two a commission based payment but then without monthly fees. You can charge participants by PayPal.
Here are some features that are planed for release soon:
Here is a video of Alix Martin. She seems to be the first Mingleverse Evangelist and she made a nice video showing the rooms in more detail.
So, if you are interested and want to try it out with some real people you can visit the Welcome Room from Monday to Friday between 11am and 1pm PDT and talk to the guys from Mingleverse, get the product explained and be amazed about the sound.
www.mingleverse.com | @Mingleverse
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