Worlds made online 3D virtual worlds back in the mid-nineties. The quality was pretty much as good as Second Life is today.

Worlds has now announced a relaunch with new board members including Bernard Stolar who brings 20 years of gaming industry experience from Sony and Sega.

Worlds launched in 1994 and received its first US patent, 6,219,045, for multi-user server technology for 3D applications, in 2001. The most recent patent, 7,181,690 B1, was granted to Worlds.com in February 2007 as a continuance patent to its parent patent mentioned above, which provides a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical, multi-user, interactive virtual world system. Worlds users have a personal avatar which allows them to move, view, voice chat, send email, join discussion groups, listen to music, watch videos, and shop within the Worlds community.
Via the Worlds site.

In 2008 Sony will launch Playstation Home, which is for now the most promising 3D world.