Google unveils a Lively virtual world

As if Google didn't have a strong enough hold on the planet already, today it's launching its own world -- a virtual world, to be exact. Lively, which Google likes to call a "virtual experience," allows you to create an avatar, decorate your own virtual room, invite friends to your room and do things you've always dreamed of, like blow up oil barrels on a deserted island.

Unlike popular virtual worlds such as Second Life, Lively doesn't require you to download new software. All you need is a browser plug-in. The service is also more distributed than Second Life: Its rooms will live on Web pages on Facebook and other sites, so you might stumble across them when browsing the Internet. Rooms can be private spaces, with entry by invitation only, or open-topic rooms, where you can meet people interested in discussing topics you love, like Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston or Google. It also ties into other Google services. You can stream YouTube videos into your virtual living room or post your Picasa pictures on your walls.

"Our intent is to be part of the users' everyday experience," said Niniane Wang, an engineering manager at Google who helped create Lively. "We designed it to be easy to use."

An early look into Lively suggests that Google succeeded at that mission. It's easy to choose avatars from a number of different options, including a turban-wearing bear. It's easy to change their clothes, hair color and skin color. It's easy to drag and drop furniture and lava lamps to position them around your room. Want your turban-wearing bear to wave to the hot mama across the room? Just type \wave. Want him to giggle? Just type \laugh.

Lively looks hip, too. It's kind of a combination between anime and a Disney movie, with wide-eyed avatars and colorful, angular scenery. Chat bubbles are brightly colored and attached to avatars with long stems.

All of which leads to the big question: Is Lively going to be the site that finally brings virtual worlds into the mainstream? Probably, said Chris Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management, an industry trade group. "With a player like Google jumping into this, you're going to see a lot more people understand this space and pay attention to it," he said.

Lively's popularity with the virtual world crowd, however, will ...

... depend on a few factors. Will Google allow avatars to buy and sell virtual goods? Will there be any currency at all in Lively? Will users be able to create things from scratch?

A Google spokeswoman said that there isn't any currency in Lively, but that users will be able to add objects from Lively's catalog to their rooms free of charge. And users can't yet create their own items but should be able to down the road.

With all these features and more rolling out later, Lively is likely to give Second Life and other popular virtual worlds a run for their money, said Michael Gartenberg, research director at Jupiter Research. That's because, like most Google products, Lively is free. Second Life charges $9.95 a month for premium membership.

Second Life isn't going to sit tight while other virtual worlds try to attract mainstream users, though. It announced today that it had worked with IBM to figure out how to teleport avatars from one virtual world to another, a development it called "a historic day for Second Life, and for virtual worlds in general." That means that down the line, an avatar in a world such as Second Life might be able to go hang out in a virtual world such as Habbo with ease.

Maybe some day, they'll go hang out in Lively too -- unless the virtual world space ain't big enough for the both of them. I hope it is. After all, although Google's entry into the virtual space is impressive, Second Life was there first.

-- Alana Semuels

Semuels, a Times staff writer, covers marketing and the L.A. tech scene.

Lively images courtesy of Google

 

Comments

[Anton Kalachev]

It still seems to be a step in wrong direction. Why everybody tries to make virtual worlds look like real worlds. They are loosing all the benefits of virtual environments by introducing gravity and walls. Why do you need to walk in a virtual world?

[Yoshi]

Anton -- I think there are two reasons: first, technical-- programmers are just now figuring out how to reasonablly allow you to move within a virtual world with things like floors, celilngs and walls; they can't tackle more complicated stuff till they master the basics. Second, users want to be able to maneuver about easily -- getting rid of walls and gravity means that it's just that much harder to move around. Easily moving around a universe that allows you full range of motion in three dimensions would require using something like a joystick or controller that hasn't been invented yet. It's hard for people to grasp there being no up in space, and it's going to be crazy figuring out how to control an avatar in such an environment.

To me the bigger impediment is that there is simply no point to virtual worlds like Second Life. Google's approach seems much better as it's allowing us to build virtual rooms where people can hang out, rather than a whole world... in a way, Googles approach is closer to your vision, as Google's approach is moving away from the idea that a virtual world has to be a world. Google is making it lots of virtual spaces without the need to place them all at fixed coordinates on a map, which is how Second Life makes you do things.

[RichWhtie]

Too lightweight for a heavyweight tech company with tech like Google Earth & Sketchup

They will be sorry for this one.
==

[Cephusj]

I just tried it out. Its really fun. I wanted to just peek in but wound up getting hooked for like 45 minutes.

[Steve Walton]

Lively states "Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox."
So they ignore and deprive their site of arguably the most innovative and creative users on the planet: Mac users.

Very swift move by Google.

[MGP]

It looks like it isn't Mac compatible (you need Windows Vista/XP)...any word on when it will be?

[Benjamin]

Again, Mac users are left out.

[Simon Newstead]

Agree with Steve, very fast move by Google.

I think it really validates the web 3D browser approach that was pioneered by Meez and starting to get some real traction with guys like Instant Action. Even MMOs will soon appear in web browsers.

For us building a fashion avatar community www.frenzoo.com, we changed from client based over pure browser based 3D approach a while back (we're in alpha now).

The web browser approach Google has adopted also really has so many advantages for development and ease of sharing and content integration. And with their Sketch Up base, they will no doubt a lot of content integration tools as well. In fact it's surprising they didn't launch with this out of the box, but no doubt it will come. What level of customization will be very interesting, and how open and portable those assets will be? Big questions.

I think this will have a big positive impact on some, and negative impact on a lot of others - client based apps as well as all the 2D virtual worlds - look out Habbo!

Btw, a full review is at http://vrfashion.blogspot.com/2008/07/livelycom-review-google-takes-aim-at.html

[rodrigo]

"So they ignore and deprive their site of arguably the most innovative and creative users on the planet: Mac users."

Or at least the most easily reached via marketing and branding.

[webdog]

Browser based avatar chats existed 10 years ago. For example, InstantPalace. It's still running if you want to give it a try.

http://mansion.thepalace.com/palace/client/instantpal.html

[Jamie Rood]

as long as it can link to our Zencart - no worries about economy, but hey let me know when it runs on Mac so I can try it too ;)

[Mario]

Yoshi: "programmers are just now figuring out how to reasonablly allow you to move within a virtual world with things like floors, celilngs and walls; they can't tackle more complicated stuff till they master the basics. Second, users want to be able to maneuver about easily -- getting rid of walls and gravity means that it's just that much harder to move around. Easily moving around a universe that allows you full range of motion in three dimensions would require using something like a joystick or controller that hasn't been invented yet."

Uhh, no. The game "Descent" came out in 1995 and it lets you fly around in 3 dimensions easily. All you need is a mouse, really... and any joystick with an analog stick would work fine too. There are tons of games where you move around in 3D.

And I don't agree with the guy who wants to be able to do that, either. Do you really want to have to look in all directions to find the other people in the "chat room"?

[Switcher]

First of all I think you all need to get a life instead of sitting around getting fat while Google's wallet gets fatter!

Second, Any developers who program only for Windows users obviously have no life and are blinded to the fact that there are a huge number of new switchers from Windows to Mac that do have money they are willing to spend and also have a life!

[zhang]

Does the domain lively.com exist? My computer couldn't find its DNS.

[Mapper99]

There is already a Google Map displaying Google Lively Worlds by location. Pretty cool...you can even browse Lively worlds from in Google Maps:

http://www.livelyworlds.com

[Paul]

Doesn't work in Linux either.....

[Domingo A. Trassens]

Google has more popular power than Linden Labs to push virtual worlds up. But we will need time to integrate the two worlds, the virtual and the real.

Domingo
http://www.comlab-corp.com
http://spaengclub.blogspot.com

[Art Johnson]

I looked and after hearing so much buzz about Google doing its own meta-world, if this is it, I am not impressed. What I think this really is...is a smokescreen and a way to test the waters...before coming out with something...way more substantial

Just think about the recent history here: 1) Google launches Google Earth, 2) then swoops up Sketch-up 3-D building-making software that can map to Google Earth, 3) Google purchases multi face-to-face Internet conferencing technology from Swedish start-up Marratech, 4) in the meantime, Google makes progress implementing multiple apps "in the clouds" with Google Docs and 4) creates Google Gears and interesting API's..

...obviously "Lively" in its current iteration..when considering all the possibilities that Google now has at is disposal ...isn't so "lively" at all. ..For me personally, I'll get more interested when incorporation of these capabilities shows up in a virtual world application that is more robust, and more serious.

[Jim Bower]

As one of the founders of Whyville.net, launched as a browser-based virtual world in 1999, now with 3.7 million registered users - we are happy to welcome Google to the land of the virtual world. While Google seems to have learned from some of the technical mistakes of Linden Labs (dependent on centralized servers, the latest graphics cards, and a too complex scripting language for the majority of users), they seem to have missed the main point -- users need something to do in virtual worlds - For Whyville, that something is learning, community engagement, and a system (economy and reputation) for personal advancement. They also seem to have not understood the second great lesson of Second Life, humans need and want some system of governance so that virtual worlds dont become a cross between Orange County California, where developers run mad, and Bagdad where there is little rule of law. 5,000 years of human history make clear that these are not just niceties, but essential for human habitation. Figuring out how to support learning, community, and representative governance is much harder than graphics programming -- but actually much more important -- only when these issues are addressed, do virtual worlds become users first lives.

[liz]

hey what's up with not making lively available to MAC users--ther'es a lot of us out here--bad move google. Hopefully your working on a Mac friendly version now.

[Dreamworld]

How is lively doing these days after it started out with such a big buzz about it?
The new so called virtual experience as Google names it doesn't seem to be getting a lot of positive feedback so far.
Any comments on that part?

[Conjito]

Google Lively struggles with the same issues that most virtual worlds are confronted with on a startup, it's not easy in the new era of virtual worlds to come up with a completely polished product that is stable in term of scale and effectiveness. Even when a large company like google comes up with such an ambitious project they also need time to make their product more robust. While google Lively isn't a virtual world but more of a virtual chatroom or meeting place they are using a sophisticated platform to achieve their virtual experience so technology wise they still will face some challenges.

http://www.virtualworld.sl