Take two on Googles virtual world Lively. I had to try again at home, hoping this time the customization functions would not fail me. Using Vista and Firefox 3 I expected even more problems but apart from having the installer crash once this time I did get to experience the full ‘Livelyness’ of the application.
The thing I’ve noticed in the Google launch is its constant comparison to Second Life. I wasn’t there in 2003 when SL opened its doors for the first time but I can imagine it being a similar empty experience to the first visit in Lively. The completely empty spaces or extremely laggy clusters of pioneers just exploring the 3D environment. However, in Second Life, this ‘nothing to do’ feeling stimulated a number of ‘residents’ to start making sure something would be happening there pretty soon. By having access to the tools to really customize the experience, and express themselves in artistic and entrepreneurial ways they created content. The content that is the glue of Second Life at this time, the thing that made it work.
Lively does not have these features yet - but they might or might not appear lateron. The browser based shop set up indicates it might have this system lateron by tagging ‘who made it’ and labeling all items ‘FREE’ hinting at a content economy at some point (see example product page). But whether this will be more like Habbo Hotel (Content is provided by the developers of Habbo) or Second Life (content is created and sold by the users of Second Life) is unclear. However, it does seem pretty difficult to design for the 3D environment without using specialist tools and 3D design software (but then again, i might have thougt the same of Second Life in 2003).
So to me, any comparison to ‘Googles Second Life’ pretty much stops there - it’s not the same. If anything Google is going to be a direct competitor with the aforementioned Habbo Hotel or the virtual chatbox IMVU, targeting teens who want customised rooms for free or next to nothing, and just chat. Simple as that. And to me, that is the smart choice given Habbo Hotels sign-ups outnumber those of Second Life by a factor 10, and all the growth seems to be in kidworlds. The problem here however, is these kidworldsdid provide context (and content) from the word ‘go’ - Disney provides mini games and meetingthe characters you might recognise from TV as an experience, Habbo outperforms Lively by far in the all-important usability for teen, Club Pinguin educates and doesn’t lag when there’s more than 10 people in your neighbourhood, conceding graphics for content.
So I’m left with the feeling Lively might be Microsofts Xbox in the most positive scenario, or Zune in the most negative - just entering a market they hope to claim by name alone. Perhaps they also pushed their deadline to beat Ralph Koster who seems to have been promoting his closed beta platform Metaplace for a long time now, offering simular features to Lively. Either way - the decentralised, embedded virtual world structure might be interesting to some, I don’t think it packs enough of a punch to really reach out into this market, even when that punch gets delivered by the 800 pound Googlerilla.
Posted on: July 14, 2008 | No Comments » |
Just a funny clip of an augmented reality application. It can really be as simple as that, a virtual pet rummaging about in your room. All the cuteness of real life with the advantages of virtuality ;)
Posted on: July 10, 2008 | No Comments » |
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 | 8 Comments » |
Last week I posted on Dusan Writers contest to re-design the interface for the Second Life Client. Today Dusan announced the finalists and I’m happy to say I’m one of them with my ‘less = more’ design! I was excited and honoured to compete with 5 other excellent suggestions for improvement. Dusan created a complete overview of all competitors and the contest itself:
It’s now down to the jury, consisting of well-known Second Life community members Ordinal Malaprop, Keystone Bouchard, Eristic Strangelove and Vint Falken. They will review the idea’s/designs and declare the winners of the total 800.000L$ prize money. To be complete, here is an overview of all the contestants in the finals and their contributions:
McCabe Maxsted Explanatory Google Doc
Rheta Shan Full Submission (PDF)
Jacek Antonelli Full Submission (Google doc)
Damien Fate PDFs part one, two and three.
Roy Cassini full submission (Slideshare):
Posted on: July 3, 2008 | 4 Comments » |
The Postbank (Dutch ING bank) in Habbo Hotel and eBay in the console race game GRID. It’s nothing new to see brands make an appearance in games to reach out to various demographics. Marketing agencies have discovered the secret of communicating with those markets hard to reach through traditional advertising. But yesterday at Branded Games 08 we got to see the complete motivation and results of Branded Games as presented by fairly large brands such as Elsevier, Wehkamp and Proctor & Gambles Dreft.
The mission of the event was simple: Show both developing companies and advertising companies games are no longer ’something fancy’ - they actually give good results, and can compete with the best of traditional marketing approaches in certain niches (and not just boys at the age of 12-18). The presentations were well supported by facts and figures and left a remarkably clear impression of the use of advertising through games. I think this was largely due to the clear targets, and actually measuring and achieving those commercial goals through games.
Especially the case of the Postbank in Habbo Hotel was remarkable. With well over a million participants at the live event, 130.000 user created ‘machinimas’ (movies) and 400.000 views in an effective campaign of turning this attention into awareness and actual new banking accounts the Postbank was very satisfied with their venture into the Virtual Hotel. They concluded their case with their findings:
- Find the places young people are active, and be visible through relevant content.
- In communication with your niche: Be yourself (Don’t try to be popular, and be clear about what you want)
- See ‘the virtual world’ as the real world (Everything you can think of in the real world, can also be done in the virtual, i.e. a press conference)
- Integration of a campaign/concept in Habbo is possible for nearly everything, even banking products: It’s about using an innovative and creative approach towards your customers in collaboration with Habbo
For the complete (Dutch) presentation of the Postbank in Habbo Hotel, and overview of all case studies/presentations (in English) visit the official website here.
Posted on: June 28, 2008 | No Comments » |
Pelican Crossing announced their basic version of the web-based virtual world development platform Blink3D is now available for free as of yesterday. Much like the Quest3D and OGRE platforms it allows you to build a virtual world through a ‘game editor’ interface. These 3D environments can reach almost gaming standards graphic levels, use real time shadows and can be visited through the browser (using a 6MB plug-in).
“We are not talking here about simply customizing a pre-built 3D apartment. With Blink 3D you can create your own virtual world, whatever type you want, quickly, easily and for free.“
One interesting bit of information I wasn’t aware of yet in the press release was the following claim: ‘Pelican Crossing has already demonstrated an alpha version of inDuality and the ability to teleport between different virtual worlds, including Blink 3D, Second Life, X3D and the Flash® based Club Penguin®‘. Though this means as much as ‘having these virtual worlds run inside a browser client through the inDuality Plugin’ and not actual avatar interoperability between worlds. However, the list goes on with other promising interoperability features:
- The inDuality client allows virtual worlds from different vendors to be embedded in a Web page. The initial release of inDuality supports Blink 3D virtual worlds, subsequent releases will add support for other virtual worlds, such as Second Life®.
- The digital content creation pipeline has been improved with automatic asset importing and synchronization. Assets can be created with: SketchUp, Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, XSI, AC3D, DeleD and MilkShape.
- Over forty new and enhanced Behaviors including Google Analytics, physics joints and forces.
The video tutorials give a good overview of the actual application, creation and publishing of Blink3D environments. The new release is available in three editions and price points: Blink 3D Standard edition $399, Blink 3D Lite edition $199 and Blink 3D Ultra Lite edition which is free.
Posted on: June 27, 2008 | 138 Comments » |
Saturday the 28th CLUB TABAC organizes a cross-reality event. This means the party hosted by De Balie Amsterdam will be streamed into Second Life, as well as the virtual party in Second Life will be streamed into the real life party (and remixed to the music). There will be debates, music (DJ’s Mark the Machine & Dynamite Dave, The Unbearable Light DJ’s, DJ Damien.S, The Conservatives, The Nicoteens) and a cross media experience more. Everyone is invited, and both physical and virtual doors open at 20:00 in Amsterdam at De Balie and in Second Life at Club Maya.
Via: Upthevortex.nl
Posted on: June 26, 2008 | No Comments » |
The next level of fast prototyping. BIMstorm issued a challenge to teams to build a virtual London within 48 hours. This virtual city will be the base for other virtual projects linked to the London city as designed by the team with the most convincing virtualization of the city. As taken from the website:
What is a BIMSTORM BUILD LIVE Event?
New technology can revolutionise the way buildings are designed and how the public can be engaged in the process. By using the power of collaborative working, the web and international developments in interoperability, ‘BIMStorm Build LONDON Live’ will show the power of these new paradigms for architecture, engineering, planning and construction. By working across the web the event is open to world wide participation.
The Challenge
At midday on Tuesday 24th June, a specially chosen and internationally recognisable site in London will be announced, along with a brief for a significant multi-use development. All the key information will be published in interoperable formats. Teams will be free to exploit any interoperable technology and to add updates to a public web-site. All visitors to the web-site will be free to comment.
The launch will coincide with the start of the Government session of the Second London International buildingSMART conference, www.buildingsmart.org.uk and a short live presentation will be made after the initial keynote speech, to brief the delegates. Teams will be asked to develop an outline proposal by midday on the Wednesday. The delegates to the main Conference session will be asked comment on the schemes available, so that the Teams can respond in the following 24 hours with more detail and with any costing and environmental assessments. The final session will conclude at midday and shortly afterwards presentations to the press and a final jury will make a number of awards.
More info on the teams, progress and general results of earlier BIMstorm challenges can be found on buildlondonlive.com
Posted on: June 24, 2008 | No Comments » |
Sophie on