September 18, 2007 12:00 ET

Utherverse.com, Second Life's Main Competitor, to Distribute Over $4.25 Million USD in New Virtual Currency

Debut of Virtual Marketplace Preludes Launch of Public Beta Testing

VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwire - September 18, 2007) - Utherverse.com, the corporate parent of RedLightCenter.com, a virtual environment that competes directly with Linden Lab's Adult Second Life property, has announced a new virtual currency. Referred to as "Rays (®)," the new money is earned, bought and sold both on the web and in the company's RedLightCenter.com virtual world.

In the next few weeks, Utherverse, Inc. will be announcing the Official Open Public Beta testing of the Red Light Center software. As a bonus for taking part in the virtual world during Alpha testing, Utherverse.com is gifting each current member with between ®35 and ®500. The total value of these gifts is expected to exceed $4,250,000 USD at current exchange rates.

In RedLightCenter.com, users can create their own avatar, or virtual representation of themselves, and they explore an online landscape that is populated with other avatars, nightclubs, casinos, stores, and other forms of entertainment and commerce, all of which are owned and operated by third parties.

"Our merchants and users were all asking for an in-world currency. Our commerce has exploded and our community has become much wealthier," said Brian Shuster, CEO of Utherverse Digital, Inc. "Since the virtual currency was introduced, our user growth has increased five-fold to about 10,000 new users per day."

Since Rays were officially introduced in early August, users of Utherverse have already conducted more than 23.5 million transactions, with a value of about $3,055,000.

"Unlike other virtual currencies, users don't spend money buying Rays from us," said Shuster. "Rather, they get paid Rays just for playing around on our social network, or for making friends in our virtual world. The Rays they get paid can be spent on all kinds of goods and services, or they can be sold to other users or investors."

Along with the introduction of the new currency, Utherverse also opened an online currency exchange through which users can buy and sell their Rays to each other for U.S. dollars. Although the price regularly fluctuates, the most recent transactions place a value of about $11 per 100 Rays. (By comparison, 100 Lindens are worth about 38 cents).

Red Light Center recently surpassed Second Life as the most popular virtual world, according to Alexa rankings (see chart to the right).

RedLightCenter.com currently has more than 550,000 registered users, and is preparing to announce a new phase of open public beta in late September.

ABOUT REDLIGHTCENTER.COM

RedLightCenter.com is the Internet's most sophisticated and advanced adult virtual reality universe. Specifically designed to appeal to the 21-49 year-old demographic market, the site offers users virtual nightclubs, hotels, bars, movie theaters and stores.

In addition, the cyber universe offers Community Events, such as parties, classes, meeting rooms, live music with dancing and art-gallery openings. These events are broadcast within the online universe. Users also have the ability to offer their own events to real audiences within the various RedlightCenter theaters. User-presented events may include the multimedia broadcast of content from podcasts, films, book-readings, comedy acts, band performances, instructional classes and more.

Utherverse, a privately funded startup founded in 2002, was formed with the goal of creating massively multiplayer online communities. Its first product is RedLightCenter.com, an adult-themed virtual world modeled after the infamous district in Amsterdam. For more information, please see http://www.redlightcenter.com.