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Austin
 Joined on 09/07/2007 Posts: 13
Points: 750
Bronze

Not a Second Life Killer, but a Lively Addition to the 3D Space

30 July , 09:00 AM

It had been rumored for quite some time that Google was looking to move into the virtual world space. Many of us with an interest in 3D platforms had tried in vain to get details on what they were cooking up. Speculation was that they were building something on top of Google Earth. And others wondered if it would be the Second Life killer app.

At the beginning of this month, they finally went public with the beta of Lively. Less a true, immersive virtual world, it appears to be more of a new 3D chat room in the vein of IMVU. Which is not surprising when you hear that Google once offered to buy IMVU and see that one of IMVU’s co-founders is now leading Google’s Lively programs.

Many virtual world bloggers and mainstream media expressed their disappointment in Lively soon after the launch. Jonas Karlsson, a researcher at Xerox known as Poinky Malaprop in Second Life and simply Poinky on Twitter, remarked: “To me, this type of platform is not that interesting. I want to be able to create things.” One of the guys at EightBar said, “I have to say it’s not quite what I was expecting from Google as the social room on a web page is quite a common concept already.” Over on Digado, Rick van der Wal.said “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.” And, Thomas Claburn at InformationWeek noted: “Lively is certainly easier to use than Second Life, but it lacks the latter's programmability.”

But, is that programmability and ability to create things one of the barriers that has slowed adoption of the use of a true 3D environment like Second Life? While those who really want to sink their teeth into the possibilities that type of virtual world offers will take the time to learn a new scripting language, a vast majority of users probably do not have time or desire to make such an investment. And, for them, a browser-based virtual environment may be all they need.

Gartner has released a report that argues that Lively is more of a competitor to social networks such as Facebook than to established, large-scale virtual worlds like Second Life. Google themselves called Lively a “3D virtual experience” rather than an actual virtual world. Virtual world consultancy KZero believes that the target demographic for that experience is 10-20 year olds, and I must admit that myself, and many other Second Life residents are closer to 40 than 20 than we’d like to admit.

There is more to Lively than just chat. You can embed their virtual rooms into other web pages, a function IT Week Labs Blog called Lively’s “killer feature”. You can even embed them into Google maps. You can also do a bit of avatar customization, design your own room, embed YouTube videos and display Picasa photos.

But, rather than go into much more detail here, I’d rather stop and ask for your opinions. If you’ve tried Lively, what did you like or dislike? If you’ve not been there, here’s a video that can give you a first look:


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Rick | Digado
05 Aug 2008 02:45 PM

Hello Laura,

Thank you for quoting me, and to elaborate a little on my statement here - 'the market' I was referring to was really that of Habbo, IMVU and a dozen other kidworlds, not Second Life at all.

The problem is most of these worlds (Habbo, IMVU) evolve around a social context based on entertainment and status. Habbo Hotel is really competative for teens, as are other kidworlds which usually provide some sort of gaming aspect or even complete narrative (Like the disney worlds).Obviously Lively lacks this competitive or narrative element so far.

The 3D chatworld is see as Livelys main competitor that doesn't quite fit that discription is IMVU. However, IMVU has been agressively advertising on nearly all networks through their google campaigns for quite some time now and has seen no significant increase in usage (at least not significent enough on Habbo's scale).

Thats why I think it would have taken something far more persuasive, or remarkable, to get into this market for Google without (ab)using their major advertising distribution channels such as youTube. Lively doesnt really offer any USP's except embedding, something which I dont think will be 'the killer app' to what I perceive to be its core market (early teens).
 
Laura P Thomas
04 Aug 2008 04:48 PM

Stefan,

Thanks for the additional information about OpenSim. I've been aware of it, and although not actively participating at the moment, I do follow Project Manhatten updates regarding OpenSim exploration via @Dr_Manhatten on Twitter!

~Laura
 
Stefan Andersson
01 Aug 2008 03:24 AM

Laura,

I read your article, and just wanted to make sure that you know about the emerging opens source alternative OpenSim (http://opensimulator.org) - which basically is an open source Second Life grid, licensed under the BSD license.

There are already a plethora of 'free' grids besides the Second Life on, and there's content transfer options.

There's a couple of companies, like Tribal Media, that are taking this open source software and transforming it into customized business applications - opening up totally new possibilities for companies to couple their business back-ends to their custom 3D world - but still with the well-known look and feel of SL.

Tribal Media also has a grid of their own, Tribal Net (http://tribalnet.se/) where you can choose either to self-host a region, or to rent a hosted one, SL-style.

At the moment, we don't support scripting, as there's still some issues with security and stability, but this will be enabled within a few weeks.

Please drop by, download the software, and try it out for yourself?
 
Aaron Uhrmacher
31 Jul 2008 09:04 AM

Great post. To your point, LIvely isn't a Second Life killer. In fact, it feels like a different type of experience entirely. This will be a big hit with people that were initially interested in Second Life, but who were quickly overwhelmed with the possibilities and frustrated by the learning curve.

Lively's 2.5D environment and user interface will help introduce virtual world environments to a much larger audience and might be a good play for many businesses. It looks like a market for virtual goods is already built-in and ready to go, and communication, while limited, is still easy to facilitate.

The people you talked to for the post are probably not Lively's target audience. This feels like it's for mainstream internet users that currently aren't participating in other similar environments. And I wonder if it's fair comparing a 2 month old virtual world to one that's already several years and many development cycles more mature.

I think it's probably still too early to evaluate, as the platform will likely evolve over the next 12 months, so I'll stay away from making too many judgement calls here. But it feels like a good balance between what's already offered in the market.
 
Jonas Karlsson
31 Jul 2008 08:55 AM

Laura,

  I agree that most users may not want to program and create things, though enabling that seems to lead to lots of user-created content very quickly, making it more likely that users will be able to find thigns that interest them. 

What I was trying to convey in my post was that, even if you don't want to be a full-flegded builder or scripter, to realize the full potential of virtual environments, you need to be able to "communicate in 3D", by which I mean things like placing markers to highlight things in the environment,  collaboratively sorting clusters of text and images floating in clouds over your head, or dropping a fail-whale on somebody's head to indicate a slight disagreement.

It's too early to tell yet what direction Lively and the other platforms are heading toward - I'm fairly optimistic that we will start seeing some more impressive things in the coming months, that take us way beyond the "3D chat room" concept.