Doppelganger is building the most ambitious and feature-packed virtual environments for their own audience (at TheLounge) and for big name entertainment and media companies. We caught up with CEO Tim Stevens and got his take the virtual world lifestyle.

1.  What is your company about? What's your business model?

Doppelganger is about social media and entertainment for the youth generation. We enable immersive and emotionally connected experiences that revolve around the things teens care about—community connection, self-expression, music, fashion and entertainment.  Our business model is built on immersive advertising, allowing select partners to integrate with our virtual environments and our visitors.

2. Why did you start this company?

The founders wanted to do something creative, entrepreneurial and game-changing.

3. What's your background?
I've built my career around the Internet, advertising, content, discovery, intellectual property and software industries at a number of private and public companies.  (Inktomi Corporation, Borland Software Corporation, Fios, Inc., Bazaar Advertising Solutions, Tumri, Inc. and 3VR, Inc  to name a few)

In terms of academics, I've got BS degrees in both Finance and Management from the University of Oregon, and a JD degree from the University of California, Davis.

4.  You're obviously working with a coveted demographic.  How do you plan to build a community of users and what is/will be the benefit of having a profile on The Lounge or one of your future worlds?

We plan to build our community by promoting this rich emotional experience through organic growth and through collaboration with our content partners.  We give teenagers a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be a part of celebrity life—indeed become celebrities in their own right in doing so—everyday.  What's more, we offer teens something “real” in the sense that when Alex from Nebraska meets virtual face to virtual face with members of Maroon 5, it's not make-believe–it's really happening, and that's immensely valuable.

5. Have you entered into any partnerships with other companies? How did you go about finding opportunities and negotiating deals?

We have and are in discussions with many more.  We find these
opportunities through our investors, Board Advisors and employees.  A lot of them find us; they download our product, and after checking it out give us a call.

 6.  Are you funded? What was the process for you to raise capital? How did you decide what investors to work with?

We are funded.  The process has gone pretty smoothly so far and we have great investors who we selected because their vision for what we are building is very similar to ours.

7.  What does the future look like for virtual communities?

Three main thoughts on this..

1. Virtual worlds will become similar to e-mail and IM; everyone is going to have a virtual identity. Even more interesting, people will be able to go from one world to another and back, seamlessly between networks.

2. Virtual worlds will become a increasingly integral part of a person’s
entertainment experience both in terms of consumption and
participation. By 2011, Gartner says that 80 percent of Internet users will be a part of virtual worlds, so we believe there's a lot of space in this sector for expansion.

3. Virtual communities are going to increasingly become niche specific—people will visit and live in virtual worlds that cater to their specific interests and aspirations.

8. What are some of the technologies that make The Lounge a reality?

We have invested a significant amount of focus in the actual architecture of Doppelganger's worlds—it's a beautifully built and carefully thought out environment that's not cartoonish or thematically disjointed. This allows visitors to live a lifestyle that reflects real-life aspirations: become a celebrity, embark on a dream career, wear the coolest clothes, have tons of friends.  It's not about having a third head or sprouting wings.