US Patent 9420229 System and method for managing multimedia data

A networking system and method is disclosed in this specification. The system hosts a virtual environment that is populated with avatars. Each avatar displays a video stream of a corresponding user and defines a virtual view point that represents the user's perspective of the virtual environment. The system implements a method that comprises monitoring movement of the avatars within the virtual environment and capturing a media stream from the virtual view point of each avatar as a corresponding user navigates the virtual environment. The captured video stream is relayed to a user's local client and displayed to the user.