Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World 358
no.good.at.coding writes "Google has launched a Windows-only, in-browser (you need to install a client first, though) 3D avatar world — Lively — that you can embed in websites and use to interact with other people. It's not as expansive as Second Life yet, but expect things to get better."
Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Back to the future? (Score:3, Interesting)
I distinctly remember applications like this back in the 1998/1999 timeframe where you could install a client-side app and interact through avatars with others visiting the same web site. It was only 2D and I don't think it was ever widely used. It was supposed to be an extension of the chat rooms that were so popular back then...
Of course, the most visited island? Sex Island (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Does it scale? (Score:4, Interesting)
"According to their track record, Google scaled reasonably well."
You mean google search. Orkut, for example, ran on 5 NT servers when it first came out and didn't exactly have the same subsecond response time that search did.
Re:Nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Be who you want on the web pages you visit 7/08/2008 02:02:00 PM Posted by Niniane Wang, Engineering Manager
Of course, you can chat with each other, and you can also interact through animated actions. In our user research, we've been amazed at how much more poignant it is to receive an animated hug than seeing the text "[[hug]]".
I think the guys at Google need to stop eating at the office...
If we rephrase it (Score:5, Interesting)
the way i see it, many of the people who label the online world as 'virtual' are rather emotionally challenged people. there is nothing 'virtual' in the online world. there is a person behind that avatar, just like you. s/he can make you laugh, make you angry, sad, engage in heated up philosophical conversation, or do stuff together. stuff done with other people in an online environment is no less valuable than stuff done in an offline environment. you can go get drunk in a local pub while talking or you can get drunk in front of the computer talking with same people the same stuff. there is no difference other than physical proximity.
if you NEED physical proximity to be able to feel connected with people, then i'd say that thats a sign of 'emotionally challengedness' in the form of weak empathy capability.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:1992 called: They want their Internet fad back (Score:2, Interesting)
What does this have that SL or any other project from 1992 didn't? It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
Even as a side project, this probably has more resources than the company doing SL.
Re:Nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
But when it gets to be where you spend more time living in an imaginary dreamworld, then it's time to seek help.
After my marriage broke up I did seek help (adjustment disorder with depressed mood), for me and my then teenaged daughters who their mother had abandoned. I was on Paxil for a while. But going to bars and writing about it at K5 did me more good than the psychaitrist and the Paxil.
If you see me writing fewer slashdot journals, you know my meatspace life is sucking a lot less.
Re:The Shark... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with the social site disappointment.
I use a 3D site (expo3d.com) to hold conferences with customers on product updates and use the 3D feature to really demonstrate what I'm saying, holding up objects, pointing at on the object with my avatar and can use my voice to offer more commentary than texting could accomplish. Texting is sooo 1990's. Use your voice. It really helps.
In my business, some customer updates are mandatory. We used to fly people in and out for the update meetings but now we can, for the smaller updates, use this software and in 15 minutes be done. We still all meet face to face a couple of times a year but it's not a monthly obligation.
We've had 100-200 customers routinely join us for our updates. We place our own teams in the audience to answer questions one-on-one via text or voice. We circulate documents. We post advertisements. And the customers love it.
So I've found a way to save money using this type of application with no perverts or gambling.
Re:1992 called: They want their Internet fad back (Score:5, Interesting)
It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
1, it's 80/20, as in 20% of their time is supposed to be used for free exploration.
2, I've talked to some Googlers who say it's more like 100/20, as in you have a huge workload so if you want to stay after hours and do your 20% you can go right ahead, but only about 1% of engineers can be bothered to do so. Especially since Google owns your bright idea once you come up with it.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
the interesting parts of second life are the virtual economy, the ability to build and script complex objects, the ability to buy 'land'.
The only interesting one of these is the scripting.
The rest is just side effects of using centralized servers. I am not interested in any virtual 3d world that isn't decentralized, meaning that anyone can set up their own server with their own rules, with the ability to easily and seemlessly travel between servers. Something like a 3d version of the www.
Re:No use (Score:3, Interesting)
I quite enjoy virtual worlds with a subject (MMORPGs, online shooters), if only for a while. However, things like Second Life are too open-ended for any real 'game' to take place. As for aiding in communication, virtual worlds don't even do that to any appreciable extent; it's all just text with a 3D avatar that doesn't do anything to convey tone any better than an emoticon would. About the only use of a 3D avatar is to show facial expressions, which no current MMO does.
In short: :(
Re:Back to the future? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft Comic Chat [wikipedia.org]?
Re:The Shark... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're not really the target audience. If you poke around in it or check out some screenshots, the design is really geared towards teenagers, much like IMVU.
There are benefits, but in my opinion they do not justify the relatively high overhead on the computer relative to a simple chatroom.
There isn't much persistence in Lively, it's just a 3D chat room. It offers context-conversations from the positioning. In a simple chatscroll all conversation is given the same weight and carried out in a linear fashion. However, for greater numbers of people there can be more than one topic within the room which interrupts all topics at hand. In the 3D chatroom, avatar-positioning provides context for who is included in the convesation and the chatballoons appear closer and in colors matching those in the immediate group. Of course a log is critical and a standard chatscroll is available on its own tab.
It's like carrying out a conversation everyone in a restaurant vs. carrying out a conversation with others at the same table.
Also, they are supplied with a few animations and inter-avatar animations. The visual aspect is pleasing, but not really useful. /me in IRC allows for much more variety. I also noted that :) and :O resulted in a corresponding animation from your avatar.
Aside from that, it has personalization of the chatroom space. While this is stupid to me, the others in my IRC chat have already "personalized" the text chatroom, pretending we're in a virtual terrarium/spa replete with cabana boys and fruity drinks. Some people might actually enjoy the room-building aspect.
Re:Windows only (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I'm sorry that I didn't read the ars technica link posted at 1:54 before making my post at 1:52, but the question remains, why isn't this cross-platform to start with? I can't see anything there that isn't already available in Java games, so why does this need a plug-in, and why is it platform specific?
Re:Google Earth + Lively? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/1437249 [slashdot.org]
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070924-google-testing-my-world-for-launch-later-this-year.html [arstechnica.com]
To us, it seems that a virtual world is natural progression of Google Earth and its 3D representations of... well, the Earth. Users could create avatars, like those in Second Life. The "street view" feature of Google Maps could be incorporated, as well as Google SketchUp, with avatars being able to walk around on actual streets and enter real buildings to check out what's inside and socialize with other avatars.
Twinverse - Our Planet is a Virtual World
http://twinverse.com/ [twinverse.com]
restoring emotional cues to messages (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Shark... (Score:3, Interesting)
Heck, they have lots of props; it'd be smart to sell "branded" versions of props. Coke or Pepsi instead of just a can of soda. They could even implement something where if a person designs something that includes a brand, they could find it and fuzz it out if it's not paid for, just like they do on MTV.
Ok, honestly... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that it's cool now to hate google and all, but I have NEVER seen anything from them that I didn't admire at least somewhat, and for most things I find them unbeatable.
If they came out with gClippy I'd have to give it a try, and I'll give you 3:1 odds that it would be surprisingly useful.
Re:Nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If we rephrase it (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently you, too, feel that there's some value in these interactions, or you wouldn't have bothered to post this reply.
Honestly, I'm with you -- internet communications only show you a part of the people you communicate with, and it's good to be mindful of that. But they're not *total* fiction.
The problem isn't new, either. People have been dealing with this for ages -- communication by snail mail shares the same difficulties. Hell, we have literature dating back centuries describing emotional connection shared over snail mail.
E.g., Love Letters Of Great Men And Women: From The Eighteenth Century To The Present Day [amazon.com]
No, it's not the same as face to face communication, but there's some solid evidence for real emotional connection through the written word.
Re:Ok, honestly... (Score:3, Interesting)
I too have been running across a bunch of people who seem to really dislike google but I'm also finding that they just suck at using the search engine. It reminds me of how neophytes will come up with all kinds of things to put down computers and how they don't need them.
"gClippy", now wouldn't that just piss Bill Gates off. :-)
LoB
Not really... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me it's following their original corporate strategy: To make all things depicted in Snow Crash come to life.
Well, they already made the CIC database (Google Search/Video/Books/etc.), Earth (they even took the name from it), now the Metaverse.
Something tells me though that Google might be able to succeed in that realm where Second Life failed, just because they would seem more willing to integrate it with stuff like Android to get people to build their own apps for it.