There is a new avatar-creation website in town, meez.com. While the site isn't absolutely new (it was launched at the end of March 2006), Meez lets you create a 3D animated character of yourself, letting you export it as an image at varying size levels -- full body or just head shots.

This kind of thing has definitely been done before (Club Pogo and The Sims come to mind), but the way the creators have executed meez is excellent. The entire system was intuitive enough that I could create my very own meez in just a few minutes, and the variety of apparel, accessories and backgrounds available was nice.

There are, however, two downsides to this system. First, I don't like the fact that I have to pay money to get certain items. Sure Meez needs to make a profit somehow, but I think they could make more money by offering branded clothing and items to be worn for free. Companies like Nike and Apple would pay big to have their products listed exclusively as accessories for the meez characters.

Second, I am a little disappointed with the way the forum system is setup. It doesn't match the rest of the site, and by using open-source software I think it really sticks out from the rest of the site. Meez has potential to be the next MySpace, but the forum system/user profile pages really lack that social networking feel to them.

Featured I would like to see:
1) The ability to post my real-life photo in my profile. A nice comparison would be fun!
2) More social networking features: friends lists, searchable profiles and a better forum system.
3) The ability to change the weight of my meez character. I am not that skinny!

Overall, I give Meez a whopping 3.5 lemons out of 5. For a beta website it is pretty well done.