Virtual environments for the category: 'Free Access'

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An Early Look at Google’s Lively

Google recently announced Lively, a customizable 3D virtual space that is straightforward to embed in personal websites and blogs.  Google’s blog announced that the project was complete.  Some have touted Lively and similar offerings like Metaplace as future Second Life-killers.  Some have noted the limitations of Second Life – as a insular world that doesn’t really play nice with the outside world.  Lively has been described by some as “Second Life contained within a web browser.”

Google’s Niniane Wang said that entering a customized Lively room can give users an immediate “sense of the room creator’s interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose.”  To us, Lively feels more like a chat room with 3-D camera controls, but hey, it’s still early, so we are somewhat excited at the possibility of portable virtual environments for the masses, by the masses.

Visiting Lively rooms requires Windows XP or Vista, Internet Explorer or Firefox, and downloading the Lively browser plug-in.  Mac support is not available, and may not be an option for same time. 

User-created Livelry rooms can be embedded in any Web site.  Visitors can chat within the various rooms and also add/move furniture and other objects.  The appearance of avatars can be modified in some basic ways.  Lively rooms can also display YouTube videos on virtual TVs and display photos (via Picasa) in virtual picture frames.

How does Lively compare to Second Life?  It’s certainly easier to use, but for now, it lacks the latter’s programmability (Second Life has an object oriented scripting language called Linden Scripting Language, or LSL for short.   We’ll keep you updated on how Lively progresses over time.


Kaneva

Kaneva at a Glance

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