What would a cross between Second Life and Facebook look like?

A US internet start-up is working on an application that could allow users of social networks like Facebook and MySpace to interact in a 3D virtual world.

Californian company Vivaty is currently testing technology that could allow social networkers to interact in a kind of virtual room. Instead of posting photos on a profile, they will put them up on the walls of their virtual room, interact with virtual images of their friends in real time, or perhaps watch a virtual TV playing uploaded videos of themselves and their friends.

But rather than working as a free-standing virtual world like Second Life, the idea is that Vivaty’s product will embed as a window in the user’s profiles in existing social networks.

According to VentureBeat, there is some serious money behind Vivaty – it raised $US9.4 million in funding from venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Mohr Davidow Ventures last year.

Vivaty will reportedly be available to Facebook users by the end of 2008.