Companies are flocking to market themselves in virtual worlds, game-like and usually three-dimensional online universes, but the long-term shape of this fledgling industry is far from clear.

Joe Laszlo, analyst at JupiterKagan Inc., said the virtual worlds are "like the early days of the Victoria's Secret Webcast, where it was crappy, but hot, so everybody went."

"When you get people deep and passionate in a community, money just comes out of it in so many ways," said Matt Bostwick, senior vice president of franchise development at MTV Music Group, which is part of New York-based Viacom Inc.

MTV executives touted their TV-show spinoffs "Virtual Laguna Beach" and "Virtual Hills," which have attracted 600,000 registered users since they were launched six months ago. Almost like the real Southern California, these 3-D online spaces have perfect weather, but in an improvement on real life, its users are all represented by attractive, slim and young online embodiments known as avatars.

"There is not going to be one metaverse, there's going to be a multitude of them out there," said Corey Bridges, a Netscape veteran and co-founder of The Multiverse Network Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif.

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