1994 corporate demos.
Worlds Chat Team
The original team put together Worlds Chat, including Dave Leahy, Andrea Gallagher, Wolf Schmidt, Judy Challinger, Syed Asif Hassan, Farshid Meshgali, Kurt Kokko, John Navitsky, Naggi Asmar, David Tolley and many others. Jeff Robinson (a.k.a. Scamper, the Combat Wombat) working with Helen Cho was World Chat's first artist, and is responsible for much of the "better-lit alien" look of the space station.
Jeff's strange fascination with penguins and love of clever lighting illusions have left their permanent mark on Worlds Chat.
1995
Ron Britvich joined KAW. He worked on the AlphaWorld (renamed Active Worlds) project inside KAW, along with the "official" product Worlds Chat. KAW was renamed as Worlds Inc. Lynne Ann and Danny Viescas joined Worlds Inc. as avatar and object makers, David Leahy was the Integrator and Producer for Worlds 1994 -1997. He developed Cyber Oz City (the first 3D commmercial space). David Tolley, the composer and sound effect maker (based in San Francisco, California) worked for Worlds .Inc from 1995 -1997. He was a staff composer for this multi-media firm, writing music for their 3D virtual reality programs "Worlds Chat," "AlphaWorld," and "Nishho-Toppan". He also composed for Starbright (the company's joint venture with Steven Spielberg).
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Wolf Schmidt, a member of the worlds chat team........
“What I can tell you is that Worlds Chat was meant as a demonstration of our multi-user technology, and as an active laboratory of what our servers could do. We had done corporate demos before April 1995, but they had never been widely distributed enough to get hundreds of people logged into the server at once. Dave Gobel (Worlds founder) was interested in the social computing aspects of the technology, and it was jointly decided that a good application of the technology would be to provide a 3D graphical parallel to the IRC and other chat popular on the Internet as of January 1995.
August 1995
Tokie-D-Bear Avatar Modier and Cure95 Program hacker
Tokie-D-Bear. He modified the cutesy "Blue Bear" avatar such that it was, from alternate angles, holding a large bong and a "phat" reefer, with a perpetual cloud of purple haze obscuring the head region. He put together a page called the Worlds Chat Tabloids, wherein he doctored Worlds Chat-related screen shots under headlines such as, "Vampire Moths seen attacking HubCenter," (with a screen shot of a boy avatar being decapitated by a menacing butterfly av), "Penguin Gangs on the Prowl," (with a screen shot of a penguin av holding an incriminating spray can near fresh graffiti in hub corridor), and "Tokie's Secret Crop Busted," (with a screen shot of plentiful marijuana fields pasted near old "infinite plain castle" in Chat version 08. Each article ran about eight paragraphs and featured amusing bogus quotes from, "Worlds Security Personnel."
Cure95 the bot-meister.
His robot avatar was the first to be seen occasionally floating off the old ideas platform in version 07. Before world mark hacks were common place and what's more, it would spew these outrageous quotes at random intervals, stuff like:
Bot: There are plenty of idiots in Congress.
Bot: But of course, I repeat myself.
Bot: -Mark Twain.
“A nifty bit of programming. These things hung around in Chat for a little over two weeks, and we eventually discovered that both bots were the property of a UNIX coder in Chicago who called himself Cure95. By hacking the teleport redirect coordinates, he could place his bot outside the platform railing, and by hacking the message subprotocol, he could parse strings and send multiple messages much faster than anyone could type.
Starbright Pediatric Network and Starbright World Who In 1995, 
Worlds Incorporated, Sprint, UB Networks, Tandem, and Intel teamed up with Steven Spielberg's Starbright Foundation to create an avatar virtual world for kids confined to hospital.
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In Worlds Chat you were in first person view only, that is, you saw the world through your own eyes. There was no way to see yourself except by using the one available mirror in Glee Pod. You could however ask someone to take a screen capture of you, which was done quite often.One of the worlds available to registered users.....Inside the desert Ziggurat on Desert Planet. There was haunting music and distant flying creatures.
1996
In 1996-97 under contract Worlds developed private worlds for IBM, Visa, MGM, Sony and Disney.
In 1996 Alpha Worlds launched now known as Active Worlds.
June 24, 1996 WORLDS, INC. RELEASES WORLDS CHAT 1.0 GOLD
a completely updated version of Worlds Chat. Worlds Chat 1.0 Gold offers bold new artistry, four new virtual worlds, an extensive avatar gallery, unlimited simultaneous users and numerous advanced features.
NOVEMBER 1996 Patent No. 747420 filed
US Patent 6219045 - Scalable virtual world chat client-server system
click here for link and details
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1998
Between 1998 and 2001 Worlds developed and launched the following worlds in revenue sharing partnerships with the following brands:Universal Pictures Animal House, Polygram, Hanson, David Bowie, NY Yankees, British Telecom, World Wrestling Federation, Aerosmith and Coca Cola China.
July 1998
July 21, 1998 Bowie World
BowieWorld includes an eerie garden, a breathtaking Chaos space, an incredibly creative virtual theatre, an art
November 1998
Worlds Inc.'s new product 'Worlds Ultimate 3D Chat Plus…™' combines traditional 2D ('HTML') Internet chat with the added dimension of real-time 3D animation and motion. Advanced features include customized avatars (one's mode of self-representation in 3D), voice-to-voice Internet telephony and a proprietary 3D Internet browser. Worlds has begun taking orders on its web site at www.worlds.com
1999
Hosts were introduced to worlds in July 1999.
August 1999 the .ini file was hacked which lay within the existing worlds player folder.
Many users then went on to create customized avatar sites, vastly increasing the amount of avatars available for use. Also at this time detailed instructions on how to alter the avatare code were also found on the worlds.net web site.
June 16, 1999
WORLDS SIGNS AGREEMENT TO BE THE OFFICIAL AND EXCLUSIVE 3D INTERNET BROADBAND CHAT CONTENT PROVIDER ON FREESERVE LTD., THE UK'S LARGEST ISP AND A LEADING UK INTERNET PORTAL As a part of the agreement, Worlds 3D Internet technology and content were included on millions of Internet access CDs and distributed by freeserve, this was for many UK people the first taste of a 3d chat and brought many british people into worlds.com.
September 9, 1999 Hanson World and HANSON CD
The HansonWorld CD sent to approximately 30,000 members of the Hanson Fan Club 'MOE' and resulted in nearly 9,000 new e-mail registrations received by Worlds.com and later a "live" on stage simulcast event with Hanson apearing live on stage inside Worlds.com.
September 21, 1999 New york yankee world
Worlds created and hosted the first real 3D virtual online world for a major sports team, NYYankeesWorld.com.
2000
2000 Ground Zero became the start point for worlds.com, taking over from the much loved meteor.
October 5, 2000 BLAIR WITCH 2
Worlds.com built 3D Blair Witch World for Artisan Entertainment's Blair Witch WebFest, running live online from October 18 - 20. After the WebFest, Blair Witch World also was available on www.BlairWitch.com, the official site for Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.
2001
January 2001 Host training program starts
February 1, 2001 WWF World
WORLDS.COM SIGNS CONTRACT TO PROVIDE WWF WITH 3D INTERNET SITE
The World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: WWF) and Worlds.com (OTC//BB: WDDD) today announced a revenue sharing agreement for Worlds.com to provide a three-dimensional (3D), virtual reality Internet site for the WWF portal.
February 20, 2001 BT World
February 20, 2001 BT WorldBT LAUNCHES ITS FIRST 3D, VIRTUAL REALITY WORLD BUILT BY WORLDS.COM
April 24, 2001
WORLDS.COM AWARDED U.S. PATENT FOR SCALABLE 3D CLIENT SERVER TECHNOLOGY WITH BROAD POTENTIAL APPLICATIONSWorlds.com was awarded U.S. patent 6,219,045 for it's scalable 3D server technology from the United States Patent Office. click here for details
June, 2001 - June 7, 2001 Aerosmith World
WORLDS.COM LAUNCHES AEROSMITH.COM, AUTHORIZED WEB SITE OF AMERICA'S PREMIER ROCK'N ROLL BAND, WITH KICKOFF OF "JUST PUSH PLAY" WORLD TOUR
A loading progress bar was added to users log-on screens.
A few members of worlds stared to creat custom textures leading to over 50,000 and rising textures visualy shown on sights such as Ravens web site and later custom built worlds.
The 1856 & 1875 versions of Worlds was released which amoungst other things allowed people to become RWX objects as avatars.
2001 - 2006
In June 2001 Worlds terminated all full time employees as a result of the .com bust and resulting Internet market meltdown. Despite this, the company continued to maintain its service as well as continued software development on an as needed basis and under contract licenses.
During these years, thousands of user created worlds and Avatars developed using Worlds tools and hosted on the members PC's. 
This user created content has been an experiment in organic growth and the sharing of virtual construction between Worlds users
This user created content on Worlds Peer-to-Peer 3D network now has hundreds of private user worlds
2003
2007
In September 2007 Worlds began a restructure which entailed a new Board to bring the company back into SEC compliance and to upgrading the core technology platform.November 2007 Worlds signs a private development agreement with MTV.
New board members
2008
May 19 New Business Development Manager
Worlds.com new appointment of a new non-executive board member; Thomas Duterme. Mr. Duterme is currently a New Business Development Manager who assesses new business opportunities at Google. Joining Worlds' board, it is expected that he will help to drive the expansion of the Company's pioneering patented 3D technology.
July 9 Run DMC world Worlds.com announced that it has signed an agreement to develop and host a 3D virtual world for legendary hip hop artist Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run DMC fame.
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July 9 Run DMC world Worlds.com announced that it has signed an agreement to develop and host a 3D virtual world for legendary hip hop artist Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run DMC fame.December 24, 2008
2009
10 March 2009
Worlds.com Is Awarded Third 'Virtual Worlds' Patent
Thom Kidrin, Worlds' CEO said :
"Working with General Patent Corporation resulted in building strong intellectual property portfolio for Worlds.com that reflects Worlds pioneering contribution to the online game technology," "We are very pleased with the results so far."
General Patent Corporation, a leading patent licensing and enforcement firm announced today that its client, Worlds.com, Inc. , has been issued U.S. Patent No. 7,493,558 titled "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space."
27 April 2009
Worlds.com, Pioneer of 3D Virtual Worlds, Announces Agreement With Pearson
Worlds.com has announced that it has signed an agreement with Pearson, the international education and information company, to develop a series of 3D virtual worlds that may be utilized for implementation within existing Pearson educational and digital programs.
“With this agreement Worlds.com begins to broaden our licensing, platform utilization and deployment with the largest educational publisher in the world. Pearson has a number of projects that virtual worlds can add value to. We are excited about this application for a broad range of their properties,” stated Thom Kidrin, CEO of Worlds.com.
Pearson has stated that it is committed to investments that complement the goals of its programs, particularly to enhance student achievement. With Worlds.com’s virtual world capability and 15 years of experience, Pearson will explore opportunities to enhance student learning and engagement.
World’s users create avatars that navigate through virtual worlds as well as build their own worlds on a P2P network. The company is building on existing formats to improve web capabilities in the 3D online environment.
Pooley
Invite as author
Blast from the past
Might pop in to say Hi again soon.
Concorde.
Jeremy Leader
Invite as author
Fascinating!
Some additions:
Worlds, Inc. was started as KA Worlds, a spin-off from Knowledge Adventure (an edutainment CDROM company) sometime in late '93 or early '94. The original version of Worlds Chat was built using 3D graphics technology originally developed at Knowledge Adventure, which had been used for single-user 3D environments in various KA products.
In late '95 and '96, a new platform was developed, which was used to re-implement Worlds Chat, as well as the private worlds you mention (and many more demos as well).
Until '97, Worlds' main office was in San Francisco; there was also a Seattle office, and there were programmers working remotely from various places in the US.
In '97, all or nearly all employees were laid off. The company was pretty much shut down, while the original owners looked for a buyer. I believe the new owners bought the company in '98, which is when a lot of the emphasis on music tie-in worlds (Bowie, Hanson, Aerosmith, etc.) started. When the new owners took charge, they re-hired a portion of the engine programming team, but not the artists or world builders, as far as I know. Then, as you described, in 2001 all employees were laid off again.