The much anticipated Virtual World of Larry and Sergey & Co. has been released today. It pretty much came out of the blue for me, but it’s there and it’s called Lively. While everyone was looking at Second Life and it’s virtual world clients, Google saw more in Ralph Kosters Metaplace approach - creating browser based, virtual environments to create a consistent ‘avatar’ between the 2D and 3D internet.
“It’s integrated with the Internet. It’s not an alternate destination, [...] Our intention is to add to your existing life.” Niniane Wang - Google engineering manager for Lively
After a very short installation I walked around as a default pig avatar in my own (empty) room for a bit, and tried to enter one of the most visited rooms. However, the loading times were so long (well over 5 minutes) I couldn’t investigate further before I get home. All option panels were still broken for me (staying stuck on the ‘loading’ bar) and I even had it crash and spam error messages from me from the ‘Lively Quality Assurance’
The quality of the 3D and application itself is much like the chat application IMVU except it feels more ‘flashy’ - with simple navigation icons. Interaction with 3D was poor at best in the default room, my avatar could walk straight through the pillars and couches, and it was very hard to navigate from the avatar perspective at all. On the upside it was very accessible, clear functions and it looked reasonably well. I could be at multiple ‘places’ at the same time and the ‘embed’ function to place your virtual room on your own website is obviously a neat feature.
Even though it’s encouraging Google has taken this step, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed with Lively. Google Beta’s tend to be better presented (I often feel the beta is just a marketing thing asking you for valuable input) but in this case, the software just doesn’t seem ready for release yet. I’m curious if Google will listen to the feedback and continue the development of the virtual world application and how they plan to integrate it with other Google services (think Android, search, Google Docs, gTalk, gMail and advertising).
Posted on: July 9, 2008 | Share on:
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dandellion Kimban
said on July 9th
“It’s integrated with the Internet.” - I just love when they say stupidities like that one. Sure it is, it is a part of the Internet and is built upon it.
Though, Lively is not completely browser based. It just uses browser as its front window. Underneath, there is an engine to be downloaded, and that engine is available (atm) only for Windows. I expected more from Google.
Dave Elchoness
said on July 9th
Regardless of whether there are wrinkles to be ironed out in Google’s approach, this is exciting news for the virtual worlds industry, in my opinion. Millions of people, I suspect, will be introduced to virtual worlds now by Google. The reach is enormous. Now, it’s a matter of using this attention to continue to increase awareness and use of virtual worlds for work and play. By the way, does anyone really think that Google will stop with Lively? Seems to me that a social world like Lively is a good way to begin a public exploration of the market potential and to gather data on use of virtual worlds as an entre to more robust environments and augmented reality.
Digado
said on July 9th
@dandellion - I agree, they are trying rather desperately to step away from the words ’second life’. Technically by saying it is not a separate ‘place’, and socially by stressing it is ment to add to your existing life, and not replace it (or make you start it anew) - the public perception of Second Life.
@ Dave - True, the thing is, these ‘wrinkles’ caused the initial hype, and strong backlash - though we’ve seem to have learned from that this time around i’d like to see some application and dedication by the google team before drawing any conclusions. I don’t think Lively really contributes anything to the existing spectrum of ‘VW applications’ other than the name Google and the promise it holds for the adoption and reach through their network.
Pavig Lok
said on July 10th
Unfortunately Lively provides us with nothing beyond a 25 year old room based virtual world model (habitat) … oh let’s say fifteen years old to be generous, about the time when 3d avatar chats were first popular and web integration first demonstrated.
Lively does exactly what every other failed rooms world does… there’s nothing to do in it apart from play with some toys given to you by games developers (you need that skillset currently to make anything for lively. So it’s got the restrictions and limitations of an mmo game - broken up space, no true contiguous reality, potted content - without the strengths, namely a point.
In case nobody noticed there are many many vw’s based on the same model as this, both in the past and now… all squabbling for the market. Business and education often dismisses them as too game like. This is true, kaneva for instance is like guild wars without any fun or quests or things to do apart from shoot the breeze… it is pointless, and kaneva isn’t even the worst offender. When there is no point to being somewhere the people who can make a point to it are the ones who become it’s consumers.
This is why every rooms based virtual world since “the palace” in the eighties eventually filled up with bored teens who could make a game out of standing around in their avatars sulking about their woes and laughing at each other getting griefed. This is the audience which found a point to the platform…. unfortunately one which, as soon as it moves in, makes the platform unatractive to business and education.
This is why i’m disapointed with lively. It is a good virtual world with the training wheels still on for total newbies… but it’s pretty much the world we have seen a million times since the mid ninties. That it “runs in a browser” is a total sham - that’s an activex control pointing at an external app and can be done to virtually anything.
If it was a world more like second life - where despite it’s drawbacks, if there is not point you can at least make one, and the barriers of entry for creating that content is low (ie not pro game dev, average joe) - then we would be more excited. Lively has hints that it may go that way, but seems to have the developer/consumer chasm firmly in place in it’s structure. The eureka moment which sells second life to serious applications (business edu) is unlikely to happen in lively for several years…. that’s when some folk are discussing something in world and someone utters the magic words “show me”, and the tools are available to sketch some kind of outline of an idea. Despite other faults this happens in SL all the time, yet in these potted vw’s it’s hardly ever possible.
Oh… and windows only? The embedding there looks a lot like activeworlds to me, and should be seen as an impediment to adoption. Macs and linux may only represent a small percentage of the market, but even a few such installations in a team precludes use of a collaboration tool if it can’t be used by the whole group.
Lively though will be good for virtual world adoption by introducing newcomers. Unfortunately it will also reinforce the idea of virtual worlds as havens for teens, kids, griefers, and wierd furry yiffers (who were well represented mere hours after opening). Perhaps when business realizes that these problems are ubiquitous it may take a more sober look at which technologies allow them to avoid these problems, and more complex worlds such as activeworlds and SL which have some real land management tools in place start to look more attractive.
Oh well… we’ll see. Just my two cents as usual :P
Digado
said on July 11th
Muchos Gracias Pavig, another interesting and clear post!
It’ll be interesting for sure to see what google does with this platform - any step forward (or backward) is likely to echo throughout the virtual world industry just because of the name attached to the ‘world’.
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