Abstract: An online game is provided in which game participants select videos to play to other game participants. The game presents a virtual social venue including a virtual video screen positioned in front of a virtual audience. The virtual audience is populated with representations of game participants visible to all, creating the ambience of a live event. Mechanisms are provided to incentivize the selection of entertaining and captivating videos. Game participants register their approval or disapproval of the video content through a social feedback tool. The game interface monitors the collective feedback of game participants and simulates a crowd response consistent with the participants' feedback.

Abstract: A method and social media platform are provided for hosting social media. A virtual social venue is provided comprising a virtual three-dimensional representation of a structure and a virtual representation of a screen, billboard, window, or other viewing surface within the structure. The viewing surface is operable to host, run and display a widget previously operating within an internet browser.

Abstract: A method is provided for sharing emotional reactions to social media. A virtual social venue is provided for sharing streaming media content with a plurality of users. Users are provided with a tool or tools to express emotional reactions, such as clapping, laughing, cheering, whistling, expressions of surprise, and booing, to the media content. The users' emotional reactions are stored in time association with the streaming media content. If and when other users subsequently view and/or listen to the shared media content, the stored emotional reactions of previous viewers and/or listeners are presented along and in time correlation with the shared media content.

Abstract: A method is provided for creating a personalized social setting for sharing streaming media content. A virtual social venue comprising a virtual three-dimensional setting for sharing streaming media content is created. Users from one or more social networks are invited to participate in the virtual social venue. Avatars are provided to each user who enters the virtual social venue. The users' profile images are extracted from the social network(s) from which they were invited, and mapped onto the avatars of the corresponding users. Alternatively, users designate video feeds that are mapped onto their corresponding avatars. Streaming media content is then presented to the users in the three dimensional setting of the virtual social venue. In this setting, users are able to see avatar representations of other users, along with their mapped profile images or video feeds, while viewing and/or listening to the streaming media content.

Abstract: A method and social media platform are provided for sharing information and attracting attention within a social setting. A virtual social venue is provided for sharing a social experience. Users admitted to the virtual social venue are graphically represented within the virtual social venue. A selection tool—for example, a virtual laser pointer—is provided to enable admitted users to call the attention of other users to a particular portion of the social venue. A linear beam of light originating from the user's avatar and terminating at a selected point within the virtual social venue is superimposed on the virtual social venue and made visible to the other users.

Abstract: A method and social media platform is provided for instantiating browser media into a social setting, thereby transforming the browser media into social media. A virtual social venue is provided for sharing a streaming media experience with multiple users invited to participate in the virtual social venue. A browser plug-in is provided on the toolbar of the web browser. The plug-in enables a user with host privileges to instantiate streaming media content from an existing web portal of a third party streaming media content provider into the virtual social venue. In response to selection of the browser plug-in, the streaming media content is streamed—either immediately, or after being added to a queue—to multiple users participating in the virtual social venue.

Abstract: A social media platform is provided for sharing entertainment in an environment that simulates a live experience. The social media platform comprises a virtual social venue populated by an audience of animated avatars who express positive and negative responses (such as cheering, jeering, and gesturing) to the entertainment presented to them. The virtual social venue comprises a virtual three-dimensional representation of a gathering place (such as a theater, stadium, or arena) for presenting entertainment. The audience includes live avatars, ghost avatars, and/or programmed avatars. Live avatars represent users who control their avatars' expressions in real time. Ghost avatars represent past users who previously controlled their avatars' expressions in response to the same entertainment and whose expressions were recorded in time association with the entertainment.

Abstract: A method is provided for creating a virtual social media experience. A virtual social venue is provided that comprises a virtual three-dimensional representation of a stadium, coliseum, arena, stage, or theater for congregating an audience of people in close proximity to each other. Users are invited to share a multimedia content experience comprising multiple simultaneously-fed video streams at the virtual social venue. Animated three-dimensional avatars are provided to represent participating users who accept those invitations, and the virtual social venue is populated with those avatars. The multimedia content experience is then displayed to the participating users in a three-dimensional setting that simultaneously displays the avatars of neighboring participating users within the context of the virtual social venue.

Abstract: A method is provided for visualizing communications in a social setting. A graphical virtual social venue is provided. Users of one or more social networks are invited to enter the venue and to participate in and share a social experience. Users are graphically represented within the virtual social venue and are able to communicate with each other. When users communicate with each other, the communications are tracked and visually represented in the virtual social venue with visual overlays. The visual overlays signify communicatively active parts of the social venue while keeping private the contents of the communication.

Abstract: A social media platform for sharing streaming media with a user's social network friends includes a user interface, a data interface to the user's social network, and a friends toolbar. The user interface includes a window displaying a virtual social venue comprising a virtual three-dimensional structure accommodating an audience of people. The friends toolbar is populated with selectable profile images of friends extracted from the social network. Selection of a profile image enables the data interface of the social media platform to send an invitation, through a messaging service of the social network, to the corresponding friend to join the virtual social venue.

Abstract: A 3D social media platform is provided that allows users to share and experience a realistic social viewing experience with members of their social network. More specifically, a user shares a virtual 3D social venue with one or more members within their social network (e.g., Facebook friends) for the purpose of experiencing the content (e.g., movie, television, video game) as if each of the members were physically together in the venue. The user selects 2D media content, such as a web page, from an external and independent source (such as a web browser) to instantiate onto a virtual screen, window, or other viewing surface inside the virtual 3D social venue. The instantiated media content is displayed to the user and any invited friends within the context of the virtual three-dimensional space.