I have tremendous affection "There". About seven years ago, during the summer, I got into the beta for the game and ended up meeting a lot of really terrific people, and having a great time. I have a number of friends that I met in "There" that I am still in contact with today. I can honestly say that the game has one of the best attitudes towards making avatars seem genuinely alive - with realistic looking body language and eye-line cues. A lot of MMO companies would do well to learn some of the lessons in player interaction/socialization from this admittedly failed game.

Also, "There" did micro transactions pretty well. People were indeed willing to pay money for cosmetic changes to their avatar. People gladly paid small amounts of money to purchase things like drinks they could hold in their hand - then take a sip of to have a randomized animation go off over their head. My favorite was a drink called the Volcano which would cause us law to arrive at the top of your head, or steam come out of your ears etc. The ability to invest so much emotion in your avatar and see others doing the same with their avatars made small interactions with objects like this much more meaningful.

A lot of people made some decent in game money through designing content.

I am writing an in-depth article about this on my blog:

http://www.popcultureofdestruction.com/