Google Lively

Did you ever get into Second Life? Basically, you could consider it a game, but for a lot of people, it's more than just that. As an example, it's enough to say that, a few months ago, I read an article about a real world company involved in the real estate business... in Second Life! So, we have real estate brokers arriving at the office, starting the computer, getting into Second Life, and then doing what one real estate broker usually does - selling properties, virtual ones, to be more precise, and earning money, but real money, this time. Now, you are probably wondering what's the link between all this and SoftDistrict, aren't you? I'll get to it right away...

My friends, it's all about Google! No, it's not about Google Docs, Google Mail, Blogger or another service/application currently developed by the Californian IT giant that we are all familiar with. For now, this is still a pet in Google's backyard, but they have decided to show it to the world, although they claim this is only 20 percent done, for now. What is it? Google Lively, of course!

OK, but what is Google Lively, after all? If we talk about its delivery form, it's interesting to notice that for now, Lively is only available to Windows XP or Vista users, but there's even more - you have to be running Internet Explorer or Firefox, because other browsers are not supported yet. The good part for those in the Mac and Linux worlds is that clients for these platforms are on the way, so they will probably be able to check out Google's virtual world pretty soon, too.

So...what to do to get in? Nothing easier - just grab the client, fire up one of those two browsers I mentioned, and then log in using your Google account credentials to the Google Lively website. Before that, you could also browse the Google Lively rooms or the Google Lively catalog, just to see what to expect for now...

Some of the rooms already look extremely well, but I guess their creators also spent more than a few minutes customizing them! In the future, I am sure that Google Lively will allow you to add virtually any possible content, especially live media, since YouTube and Flickr content is already available, as stated by Google's Niniane Wang:"If you enter a Lively room embedded on your favorite blog or website, you can immediately get a sense of the room creator's interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose."

I could say a lot more about Google Lively, but the movie above should tell you all there is to know in a glance, for now. Leaving all else aside, let me get to my last personal impressions...

In only a few hours since entering for the first time the Google Lively world, I experienced about 3 crashes. Well, we're talking about a Beta, and since they claim it's only 20 percent complete, this can be overlooked. More than just rooms, I would like to see some kind of connectivity with Google Maps, maybe a way to place a virtual room on the map, in the real world, or create a virtual world similar to ours, where land could be owned, companies could get into business, and so on. I know it sounds like Second Life, but I am sure Google can make this different and, above anything else, better.

I know I promised to continue the race for the Firefox addons world record, and you can bet I won't leave that waiting for too long, but Google Lively is a subject that deserved all my attention today. While most people will probably consider it still too sketchy to be taken seriously, I advise them to look back at Google's Gmail early days...