The Gleaner

A new online community called There has opened for visitors (www.there.com). It's not quite a video game and not quite a chat room; the Menlo Park, Calif., company behind it, There Inc., calls it 'an immersive online 3D destination.

The Windows-only meeting place, which lets subscribers pick 3-D representations of themselves and communicate via instant messages, costs $4.95 a month or $19.95 a year.