Look, we love Google just as much as you do. They have excellent tools for small business, Gmail is sweet, and there's a special place in our heart for Google Earth and Street View.
But they're not perfect (Hello, Froogle!)—which is why we're not quite ready to jump on board with Lively—Google's newest free tool. Lively, which launched yesterday, is a Second Life-style chat tool that lets people talk and interact with each other in 3D virtual rooms. Unlike other virtual worlds (like Second Life), Google lets users create rooms that can be embedded on their website or blog, making it easier for users to move back and forth between rooms on different sites. The New York Times is already gushing that it has the "potential to change the way people interact over the Web," and the LA Times says that it may attract hoards of new users to virtual worlds.
Really? While sure some virtual world fangirls and boys are probably foaming at the mouth over Lively's launch, for the rest of us, what's the big deal?
According to the Google blog, it's quite simple:
"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]]'."
Frankly, that not only sounds kind of creepy, but it's kind of hard to get excited about. While some investors think that virtual worlds are on the brink of taking off, the fanfare over this launch seems more like excitement over a new Google app than it actually does over Lively itself. What do you think? Don't miss Lively's (oddly grainy) promo video below.
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I agree, these social interactivity "things" are a bit pointless to me. A game like World of Warcraft has a goal, a progression, a unifying theme and a challenge to it.
Lively and Second Life don't seem like they can be half-assed either, they require being very involved with walking around, talking to people having all this fake interaction with someone that looks like a sushi-cat. Where's the money to be made? Real estate and advertising like on Second Life?
Hooray for another chance to be something you're not.
—matteo
16:04, July 9th, 2008
People said the same thing about Second Life (which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, unlike Lively). Some people make their living designing avatar clothing and furniture on Second Life. So Second Life and, like, World of Warcraft have certainly "[changed] the way people interact over the Web" -- it's easy to get excited about a virtual world when you can make money or slaughter the orc hordes -- but Lively seems like a grown up Habbo Hotel to me.
Is talking to strangers really so horrifying that you need the buffer of irreality to do it? Why would you want your life to be any less real?
—richard
13:09, July 9th, 2008
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