Two years ago chief executive Bob Quodling told his creative team to come up with something that would ''blow the world''.

At the Virtual World Expo in Los Angeles two weeks ago, multi-national software companies said his team had done just that.

Mycosm, a 3D version of Facebook, allows users to build their own worlds and share them online to play games, exchange media, make money and socialise with friends.

Now Simmersion is set to follow a proven formula for massive growth on the internet: make something very valuable, give it away and then make money from its user base.

Mr Quodling and chief technology officer Jeff Cotter founded Simmersion in a Civic bedroom six years ago, creating Simurban software which simulates cities and is widely used in urban planning.

This project took a wild turn when Ben Hamey, then still in his teens, suggested using the software for social networks on the web, making the project a 3D version of Facebook.

Mr Quodling said it took plenty of courage to freeze the Simurban project and focus on Mycosm.

Mr Cotter, Mr Hamey a former radio announcer who did the company's designing and branding and his brother Nathan, a graphic artist, started the project from scratch.

Two million dollars and two-and-a-half years later they're preparing for London's Virtual World Expo next month after which Mycosm.com will be ready to use. Mr Cotter said no one else had deployed a virtual world on the web for the average person.

''The ones that are out there are all pretty difficult to use and are aimed at gamers. Mycosm.com is aimed at more the average, non-technical person.''

Mycosm.com's graphics fidelity was equivalent to that of the top few games in the world, whereas every other virtual world was very low-fidelity, equivalent to where the graphics industry was about a decade ago.

While there were great expectations for Mycosm.com, it was no sure thing.

''It's a bit of a punt. It's like a pop record: it might do nothing or it might be hugely successful. It could easily be 10s, 20s, 30 million users.''

Mycosm.com users can create virtual worlds for fun. Two mates could download technology free of charge to create a virtual world for racing cars.

If they want to sell their world they can do so at a marketplace resembling an e-Bay for virtual worlds.

Simmersion would receive a percentage of each sale.

Mr Cotter said Mycosm.com's rapid growth would be a powerful banner and advertisement for its underlying technology which would be licensed to companies for a seven-figure fee.

At Mycosm.com's first Australian demonstration, at Simmersion's new Fyshwick headquarters yesterday, ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope described the company as the quintessential Canberra story, of public servants moving over to private enterprise and selling an idea, first to governments and then to the world beyond.