Google Lively: a 3D social networking/chat tool that nobody asked for

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Social Software, web 2.0

Google Lively: a 3D social networking/chat tool that nobody asked for

by Brad Linder Jul 9th 2008

If you've ever thought it would be a good idea to embed a chat widget on your web site, Google has another proposition for you: Why stop there? Why not embed a 3D environment, let users create avatars, decorate a room, and chat with one another? The company has taken the wraps off of Lively, a 3D social networking/chat service that does just that. You can create or join Lively rooms through Lively.com or you can embed rooms on any site using a small snippet of HTML code.

We got our first clue that Google was up to something in the social networking/virtual world space last year when a student at Arizona State University snapped a screenshot of the signup page for a top secret Google project. At the time we guessed that Google was building a Second Life competitor. But since it's a web-based service, it looks like Lively is more of an IMVU competitor. That should come as no surprise, since as VentureBeat points out, one of the founders of IMVU now works for Google.

Honestly, we're not convinced that 3D Avatars add much to the social web experience. But if you're the sort of person that loves to spend hours customizing your Nintendo Mii or playing The Sims, you'll probably get a kick out of Lively. You can pick a character or a room from a handful of templates, and then start customizing by adding furniture, clothing, and changing characteristics like eye color, hair color, and skin tone.

At the moment Lively is Windows only and requires Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 to run. You also have to download and install the Lively application before the service will work. And there's a chance it still won't work. Lively is a bit of a resource hog. It crashed our browser a couple of times until we turned off almost every other running service on our PC.

Is Lively kind of cool? Yeah, sure. Is it worth crashing your web browser to use? Not really. What do you think? Is Lively a keeper? Or is it a waste of someone's 20 percent time at Google?

Tags: avatar, imvu, lively, second-life

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Firax said 2:56PM on 7-09-2008

Why would Google do something like that?

Quikboy said 6:14PM on 7-09-2008

I think Google should drop it. There's already Second Life out there, and PlayStation Home seems a more compelling virtual world.

I caught an interesting article that Microsoft probably has plans to make their own virtual world. Something about a mash-up of VE and Photosynth, and maybe just adding avatars to roam about. Sounds cooler to me, though making a virtual room or pad would be neat.

http://www.liveside.net/blogs/opinion/archive/2008/07/09/windows-live-ly-will-there-be-a-3d-story.aspx

Dan Course said 7:19AM on 7-10-2008

Don't think it wasn't asked for, it's more just "going to happen". The BBC have been looking into them for ages, also sites like http://www.webbliworld.com/ I bet wish had they had one!

I think once some FB, Myspaces, Bebos start showing panels into the world (http://www.thoughtden.co.uk/blog/2008/07/10/google-welcome-lively-com/#comment-216), it'll get big.

Dan Course : http://www.thoughtden.co.uk

Andy Chapman said 7:55AM on 7-10-2008

Actually, I think Google are onto something here. As a web designer, I can see some of my clients wanting to interact with their visitors. Why not create a branded space for real-time networking on their site? I like it.

jason said 8:34PM on 7-15-2008

lively is a pile of garbage. crashed my computer. when i got it to work it wasnt even fun. not everything google makes can be great.

Mapper99 said 11:08AM on 7-18-2008

I think Lively is going in the right direction. Especially once Google merges in real life 3d data from Google Earth and Google Sketchup. They already have integrated into Google Maps:

http://www.livelyworlds.com

rayq said 7:26AM on 7-31-2008

I tried it and i think its a little bit too much of a cartoon for me. Ticket4one has a similar thing but atlaest i can see real people from the
3D Virtual Chat Rooms

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