I have mentioned several times in this blog about the next big steps in the metaverse and two of my key points spring to mind, 1) Integration with existing online ‘life’ tools and 2) a company with super deep pockets, Google. So without much fanfare or pomp or circumstance ‘Lively – perpetual beta‘ was sneakily launched. A Google driven Social Virtual World made up of customised and personalized ‘rooms/enviroments’ that runs inside Windows web browsers (IE,FF). After a 2 minute install I was up and running checking out some CCEs (Community Created Environments) and looking for folk to chat to. The YouTube gives a good sense of the experience, but turn the sound down 
With avatars and aesthetic nearer to there.com than Second Life (bizarrely referred to in the marketing blurb above and on the instructional site) the real point of difference here is the fact that you can embed your ‘spaces’ in blog posts and other embed friendly web 2.0 apps. Here is one of my rooms embedded inside my Justvirtual.com blog (yes you have the virtual world as an embedded active window!)…
…plus the fact there is a multitude of other integrations with the Googleverse around the corner. I have seen talk of contextual advertising, built in YouTube on various screens, items within the rooms containing Amazon-type product links and of course the ability to plop your space on top of Google Earth/Maps – the list goes on and on…There is also integration with Facebook, MySpace and others via OpenSocial.
There is also a nod to PS3 Home given the strong create your own room using bits of found furniture (in fact very Habbo also), embed it in your blog etc and what looks like a catalog where 3rd parties can eventually come along and sell pixel products, virtual goods – which is where the real biz model is of course. Here are a couple of room screen grabs I took on a first whistle stop and I will report more when I have had time to dig in deeper…I include the ever so important embed pane at the bottom of each room, will Virtual Environments start to go viral? Sadly using the current technology each room has been crippled to only 20 avatars at a time and the movement around is a rather clunky mix of click to jump there and drag with mouse to smoothly move around. There are some fun elements though…
…and I just filmed and uploaded onto the LAMP channel a quick grab of me Gazlitt and some of the 20 or so avatar interactions – limited to fun-fights or petting ala Simpsons vs sophisticated Second Life custom ones. I can see this type of world working well with the there.com demographic, or even perhaps the 10-early 20s and I am already tempted to create a couple of machinimas due to the cartoon’y nature of the graphics.
… and some more insight – A Google talks YouTube video from January 24 of this year looking at the backend…
Apparently Millions of Us and Rivers Run Red have been making objects and a few first off the block branded spaces – probably as Second Life commissions runs a little low they have time on their hands. A good summary of the service can be read at Virtual Worlds News which features some quotes from Head of 3D Worlds at Google, Mel Guymon…
“Our goal is to get everyone on the Web using 3D and to validate it as a part of the social experience,” said Guymon. “If we [as an industry] are going to do it, I think getting someone like Google to do it is crucial. And since we are doing it, I think we’re going to look back at having had Google do it as crucial.”
and to show that embedding web 3.0 into 2D social networks are going to be one of the really interesting growth areas this year how about this new 3D ‘vivaty‘ plug-in for Facebook with tons of web 2.0 integration? Wired has a good introduction article on it from last week…Vivaty Scenes Taps Facebook, AIM for ‘Immersive Internet’
A new immersive web platform called Vivaty Scenes lets users create tiny virtual worlds and decorate them with content from around the internet. After adding Vivaty Scenes, which entered public beta Tuesday, to a Facebook or AOL Instant Messenger account, users can set up a customizable “room” where they can host chat sessions or small virtual gatherings within a web browser. The free service lets users pull content directly from some of the internet’s most popular sites. Scenes’ virtual televisions can be populated with any video from YouTube; virtual picture frames can be filled with any picture from a user’s Photobucket, Flickr or Facebook accounts.
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Hey Gary, v. interesting!
In your trawling & travelling did you hear any speculation on timing for Lively ploppin’ onto Google Earth/Maps?
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Hi Lesley,
There is a lot of talk now GL has gone crazy over the last 24 hours…I haven’t seen official support but Laurel Papworth suggests that as with the embeds I mentioned and used above you should be able to insert the ‘GL window’ as an iFrame at a marker on a personal/public Google Earth layer. I suspect once GL has settled down and there are several thousand rooms looking for a connected universe then a simpler integration path will be revealed.
Thanks for commenting
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have a look at exitreality. it turns every website in a room like lively…
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Thanks Life, I have posted a lot about exit reality in layered social virtual worldsfor example and svw a stage featured it. I think the ability to turn any website into a 3D space is good but needs to be appropriate for the content. Still images into galleries are good, some eCommerce site, certainly simple games but many, many textual sites need to be thought through. I will be posting on ExitReality more alongside RocketOn very soon!
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