Along with announcing that its avatar and 3D virtual spaces platform had reached over 20 million registered users, IMVU officially made its public debut earlier this week after spending four years in stealth mode.

IMVU reportedly generates $1 million in revenue per month through its micro-payments economy and catalog of purchasable virtual goods, and the company plans to expand on that through a partnership with prepaid card provider InComm. Soon, prepaid cards for IMVU Credits will be available in Target, 7-11, Blockbuster, and Speedway stores throughout the U.S.

IMVU CEO and president Cary Rosenzweig took some time to talk with Worlds in Motion about the now public platform, including its growing virtual goods catalog and plans for attracting new users.

Why make your public debut now?

Rosenzweig: It has to do with celebrating these milestones. The 20 million registered users was a real milestone for us. We've also had the world's largest catalog for some time now. We recently crossed the 2 millionth item we've ever created, too.

It's time that we start telling the story. I think we have a better handle on what exactly IMVU Credits is. For a long time, there were many different elements to it that we've been identifying. It's about people, and it's about our members meeting others from around the world.

All of this came together, and we decided that it's time.

What are your plans for attracting new users?

Rosenzweig: We're trying to talk to as many influencers and experts in a variety of areas that are related to us, whether that's gaming, business, or technology. We're also going to reach out to websites and blogs related to the interest areas that many of our users care about, whether that's anime, goth, vampire fights, all kinds of things. Our objective is to focus initially on those interest areas and share with them that they have an interest in this topic.

We will do advertising, but we haven't done that yet. wW believe that's something we can do at any point in time. We're trying to create something that's durable and sustainable for a long period of time. In order to do that, we believe that being dependent on advertising is not the proper thing to do.

Can you describe IMVU's animated 3D scenes?