Lively.com Googles Virtual World ?

After months and months of rumour about Google creating a virtual world Lively.com has sprung up seemingly from nowhere, I caught wind of it via Al Kronos’ twitterings and went off to investigate.

It’s a cutesy looking ‘create your own room, invite your friends’ and embed on your website type world with a default set of content that can be expanded by splashing out more cash in the shop.

Of course step one is to create somewhere to congregate and it would be wrong not to stick the Eightbar flag straight in to claim a spot. So here’s the Eightbar desert island, see if you can get in.

I have to say its not quite what I was expecting from Google as the social room on a web page is quite a common concept already.

9 thoughts on “Lively.com Googles Virtual World ?

  1. Everyone who covers this stuff seems to be freaking out over it, but, I just can’t seem to get overly excited about it. In fact, both my wife and I are at a loss as to what to report about it on our site. Is this new? Maybe for Google. Do our members care about another kiddie looking 3d chat client? I don’t think so. Is it really even a Virtual World? I am not so sure…

    It seems to me it is a great measuring stick as to how far we have come, or rather, how far we have digressed since the Second Life craze died down. Expand and contract. I believe this may be the “peak” of the Virtual World “contracting” phase…

  2. At least you can run this beastie. It is simply not running properly on my machine and I can find no assistance in Lively’s rudimentary help systems to fix the issues. I’ve tried re-installing, checking that scripting permissions are OK and even re-installing Flash — all to no avail. So I can’t create an avatar, hold a conversation or even keep the configuration of an island I’ve created (well 3 actually).

    I can do almost nothing with this pile of bobbins. So it’s back into SL for me.

  3. I can only hope they are planning bigger things. As mentioned, you can’t call it a virtual world yet. It’s truly a 3D chat room as released. Hopefully someday we can create stuff in Lively…oh…and it will run on Linux.

    Vee

  4. It is disappointing, I think we were all expecting them to do some clever tie in with google Earth or at least utilize the vast amounts of data they have access to.

  5. Just to agree with the opinions voiced here – this is what we were seeing from Adobe Atmosphere a few years ago … and doesn’t seem to have any of the polish or insight that I usually expect from Google. Incidentally, it only works on my home broadband, no joy on any of the corporate networks I use. Is this indicative of it’s intended market?

    My only hopes are that since this is the Beta, we will see a number of extensions to the functionality that we have here, a better interface etc. A Linux and Mac version of the client, more control, building, commerce apis … I’m sure you’re all thinking about the same

    One of the key things that struck me though, was that given the efforts that Linden Labs have been going through to ensure openness and interoperability are possible, it would be nice to see a future release of Lively that allows me to enter with my SL avatar… I guess however that the odds on this are rather low and I suppose I am more likely to see a browser plugin version of the SL client long before Google and Linden sort out interoperability issues.

  6. This is simply not ready for “prime time.” I am amazed that Google “outed” it so prematurely, unless it has something to do with finances. It seems to be an animated version of AOL hell. Those of us who were praying for an answer to Second Life (TM (C) and any other symbol I might be missing, lest I go to jail) can now get up off our knees I guess. Second Life (TM (c) ad nauseum) has excellent movement, interface, graphics, you name it – their only problem is the unspeakable and unattainable (unless you’re filthy rich already) tier fees that drive people out of business. I am still hoping that in the future, Lively will allow for creation and purchase of avatars, fashions, items, etc. From what I’ve seen so far, however, it appears to appeal to the VERY young crowd who prefer to outshout each other with obscenities rather than design a fluid virtual world.

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