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Google Testing "My World" Second Life Rival?
Tjeerd writes "Rumors of Google's plans to create a virtual world that rivals that of Second Life have popped up once again over the weekend. The company could now be collaborating with Arizona State University to test the 3D social network, which may be tied into Google's current applications of Google Earth and Google Maps."
The year is 3007. A tour guide is moving people in futuristic suits along a wall containing ancient artifacts--some over 1000 years old.
... ... although this is before the time of the iCar, iHome, iWear & iMarthaStewartBedSheets.
Tour Guide: What you see before you on this wall is the registration page of "My World" which was a mediocre success from the once successful company Google
Tourist 1: You mean the religion Google?
Tour Guide: No, this is before Google was technically a religion, although leading theorists are still in hot debate over whether or not they ever exhibited non-religious behavior.
Tourist 2: So is this the "MySpace" that almost lead to the completely downfall and lack of productivity of the users?
Tour Guide: No, this is a sad an unfortunate result of the ignorant times of the beginning of the fourth millennium when companies copied each other in naming conventions. Unfortunately this lead to confusing statements such as "You can find it on my MySpace profile." or "I like your My World house." Remember this after the point in time when everything had an e- appended to the front of it to raise more money due to reasons not yet understood
Tourist 3: So pre-iGod era?
Tour Guide: That's right, prior to the death and rebirth of Steve Jobs.
Tourist 4: What's this ancient script here on this page?
Tour Guide: That is a dead dialect of someone criticising another user's "My World" and it reads as such, "J00 need a life, ur MW site is teh ghey." Scientists suspect this sort of talk was indicative of people who had experienced full frontal lobotomies or spent more than 10 minutes on a (now banned for obvious reasons) cell phone. The criticizing user is unimpressed with the amount of memory a plain "My World" consists of and seems to be demanding that more objects, backgrounds, dancing jesuses and flying toasters be added to the 'ghey' user's page.
Tourist 5: What was the point of all of this?
Tour Guide: Again, a much debated topic although the currently accepted belief is that these sites were often a strange mating ritual as many of the once private messages are now public and indicate that sex, hooking up or unspeakable acts were highly sought after from other users.
Tourist 6: I can't believe I evolved from one of these 'people.'
Tour Guide: Indeed, we have come a long way. It is too bad it took a thousand years and the complete eradication of all Microsoft products to return our productivity to nominal levels.
My work here is dung.
Everyone will put down that they live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and the servers will asplode!
stuff |
Is there some sort of shortage of virtual flying penises or something?
Second Life is useless other than an entity for journalists to write stories about so they can look "plugged in" to the Internet culture. Many companies have attempted to maintain a presence there, but they usually don't last because they don't really get anything out of it. Why would Google's offering be any different? Just because they're Google, so everything they do is automatically better?
Maybe Google is looking for an entry into the burgeoning banking scam or furry porn industries.
What does any of this have to do with the iPhone? If I want non iPhone news I'll ask for it!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I love rumors. Rumors make me believe everything will be better and just the way I like it. Google -might- create a new second life, Microsoft is -poised- to buy stock in Facebook, there have been -talks- that Mac OS X won't run on 800 MHz machines.
/., just feeling a little jokey today)
Now facts... facts I have no time for. Facts are depressing, facts are cruel and heartless, and facts are used by people such as Jack Thompson. Or, rumor has it that he uses facts, so I suppose in truth he's rumored to have certainty -- which shakes me to the core.
Also, rumors tell companies like Google what to do next. "Hmm, what will we do tomorrow? Let's see what we're rumored to do? A new Second Life and a puppy-reselling website? We'll need some more Ajax scripters!"
Oh, rumors, is there anything you can't allude to?
(not a dig at
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Second Life has a good PR team, but that's all they have. They really don't matter. Claiming that they plan to rival Second Life is like claiming that they'll develop an OS that will rival BeOS in market share.
If it ties up with google maps and earth, then I can only assume that given where I live my avatar will be really, really blurry and be wearing flares.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
This could be more of a tool for companies and others to organize their data on a map in a new way (Google has been doing more for companies on their maps lately). What if you could drive or walk down the road to the local pizza shop and order your pizza or ask an question to the automated worker. Google has much of that information already they just need a way to pass things around (grandcentral, gmail). Flat text on a map isn't always the best. If you have a picture of the front of my shop why not put me in my virtual shop and let me help real life customers. They can virutally watch me cook a pizza and send my driver out and a few minutes later the real driver shows up at the door. It's all about organizing the worlds data in a way people will interact with it.
Don't forget that Sony is also launching 'Home' for the PS3 in the coming months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Home
I don't know why people spend money on books or movies - is life so bad they need to escape into an alternative reality?
Acid House saves Souls
Cool... So you would be able to travel all over the place using a virtual alter-ego! Imagine, you could meet your friends over the internet and go to places you usually go, only it's virtual! Isn't that absolutely cool? Wait, even better! Imagine if you could carry with you a GPS device that would allow you to be tracked all over the earth and show your avatar in the client? Wait, even better, let's make that device able to connect to the virtual world and exchange messages... You could use it to meet people near you! I mean, imagine if you could just bring out your gPhone MyWorld Edition and use it to talk to the pretty girl at the other table! Wouldn't that be absolutely cool and bring incredible improvement in personal interaction? You could see all the people near you on this device and you could use it to meet them! (I hope no one takes this seriously....)
I hear that Google is going to make this awesome search engine and make $$$ from the sale of relevant text ads using search engineer queries. Pretty clever!
now that we talk about streets, I'd choose 221-B Baker S... WHAT THE HECK AM I TALKING ABOUT!!! *Jumps out the window*
[System status: Sanity regained.]
Whew, that was close.
It has been confirmed that Google will create a subsidiary named "The CC Company" and that their virtual environment will be called "The World". The project will be lead by Dr. Harold Hewick, an expert in A.I.
Rumours of beta-testers suddenly falling in coma after entering "the World" are completely unfounded.
Or maybe an online version of the old BBC game Elite. Then you could fly between worlds shooting pirates and trading Second Life goods for WOW goods.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Uhhh...Yes. That usually is the reason why people read or watch fictional books and films: modern life is pretty boring.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Most people's lives suck! They work boring jobs with no future. They live mostly just above the poverty line. Things like television, video games, movies, books, irc, MySpace, and SecondLife give their boring existences something stimulating.
Choose your poison: Religion, Sex, Drugs, Sports, Music, Books, Movies, TV, IRC, MySpace, SecondLife, SLASHDOT.
Whatever will get your brain to release some Oxytocin and/or other Endorphines. And don't think for a minute any of the options is *better* than any of the others. The only thing *good* is what is *good* for the individual in this context.
It would be nice if everyone were pleased and stimulated by thoughtful and intellectual pursuits; unfortunately, most are not.
Heck, as long as it's not self-destructive, who cares? Everything in moderation and everything will be fine.
Kind Regards,
Gerry B.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
What do they mean by "3D social network"? People aren't 3D. They are flat, made up of pixels, usually with a resolution of 1280x1024. At least that's all I've seen of them since the last time I came out of my parents basement.
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't understand how virtual realities like this have become popular. Do people's real lives suck so badly that they need to frivolously spend money to create their own little world where things don't suck?
some people knit. Some people have sex. Others create intricate simulated worlds... where they knit and have sex.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I'm quite well hooked on it.
For me it's something like the ultimate combination of a chat and a development platform. My development interests (reputation systems, moderation) also happen to require being part of something that has a decent userbase.
Maybe think about it in terms of why The Sims is so popular. I actually remember reading about this guy a few weeks ago in News of The Weird that is a super-stud in Second Life, it was rather comical because he had a virtual marriage, and it sounded like he committed a lot of time to it.
Yes, some people's lives suck that badly. Others just don't like reality, and still some do it just for fun. Its like drugs maybe? It is the reason people get addicted to WoW.
It isn't about not meeting people people face-to-face, its the reason why I think people are drawn into WoW, Second Life, and some drugs (pot in particular), it is a social experience. You share a common interest with someone, and it acts a medium for social interaction.
Normally I consider a Neuromancer type cyberspace to be completely useless way to locate and process data. Functionality > cool factor.
However, combining it with Google Earth to enable "avatars being able to walk around on actual streets and enter real buildings to check out what's inside and socialize with other avatars" might almost vaguely be a good idea. It's one thing to shop online with a traditional web interface, but it's quite another 'enter' a store and talk in real time with other customers or store personnel. It changes online shopping from a 'research item, browse for lowest price, and buy online' task into a First Person Shopping experience. I find it disturbingly appealing for some reason.
Combining a generic, omnipresent (i.e. non-Microsoft) video/3D conferencing network would be useful. Instant messaging is great but it's still just text. Video conferencing isn't ubiquitous enough to be useful. (The unwashed IM masses do not use it.) Upgrading instant messaging or chatrooms to a 'First Person Person' experience might take group communication and organization to a new level. Imagine what you could do with political meetings or neighborhood meetings.
I'm not saying that actual face to face human interaction should be tossed out. A 'First Person' 3D avatar Google Earth could make it easier to attend tedious or 'mandatory' social organizing events such as neighborhood meetings to get petitions signed for new stop signs. Instead of having to rush home after work and fight traffic to make a 7pm neighborhood meeting (which discourages you from participating,) you can just login and participate. Sure you lose some of the social interaction (quality,) but you make up for it with quantity (more people can make it.)
Anything for the ability for me to pilot Ryu Hayabusa through a killing spree over a few MMORPGs.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I personally thought second life was a complete waste of time. I dunno maybe i'm getting old, but after 30 minutes of wandering around it got so boring i uninstalled it. I can understand that there are a lot of people out there that get something from second life, but me personally I think life is too short to watch a graphical version of yourself wandering a computer generated landscape.
Seriously, though, what's the difference between play on Second Life and any other form of escapism? Many people around the world spend a large quantity of time staring at a television...Are their lives inherently pathetic? What about people who put up various styles of vanity web pages(blogs, fan forums, etc)-- do their lives necessarily "suck"?
I think that's the conceit that bothers me in what you're saying, the presumption that interacting with people socially in an online setting == a stunted real life. The two don't necessarily equate, as I'm sure you'd have to agree understanding that you're taking the time to comment /about/ such people's lives on an inherently geektastic online forum.
It's only a matter of time before SL-type worlds interoperate, and there are bridges/portals/stargates to let your avatar travel between all of them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This whole post is opinionated. Is like saying:
- People's lives suck so much, they wish they were fighting wars. Hence the millions playing CoD, battlefield, quake online.
- People are so unathletic, they are playing sports games online.
I can just see it: a virtual world as the unifying interface for information about the real world, with news searchable by location and marked on the map. And current satellite images projected onto the virtual ground, allowing users to observe the real world in places they aren't physically located. And, above it all, bloggers looking down from their dirigibles, identifiable by their avatars' red capes and aviator goggles...
I'm at ASU and I haven't heard of any collaborations involving this. If it's true they're keeping it under tight wrap.
Maybe it depends on the neighborhood you are in. Where I am, the pubs and restaurants are just 10 minutes walk or a 2 minute bus ride away. Other parts of the city, I wouldn't want to go out of my door for fear of the drunk yobs wandering around. Alternatively, being out in a rural or suburban area, travelling down to the nearest entertainment venue might require a car or taxi.
I thought it was mainly art students who liked Second Life, so that they could demonstrate virtual versions of their creations.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I don't understand how virtual realities like this have become popular. Do people's real lives suck so badly that they need to frivolously spend money to create their own little world where things don't suck?
I don't think it's that "real life sucks." I think it's that real life is difficult and uncertain. It's a hell of a lot of work and there's no guarantees it's all for nothing. These virtual worlds create a place where if you learn the rules of the game and put in your time you are guaranteed to accomplish... Whatever makes you stand out as better than the other "noob". In Second Life it's generating or buying cash to make and buy better stuff, in Warcraft it's grinding for gear to put others to shame... Whatever.
Of course putting that effort into improving your real life is much more rewarding, but that feeling of pride because you accomplished something is much more difficult to attain. In these virtual worlds it's handed out like candy (or maybe like crack cocaine.) Sad as that may be.
Fight or Flight are the natural responses to things we don't like. Some fight (especially if they have no realistic possibility to evade), others prefer to stay away from the whole mess and try to divert the mind with other things. Books, movies, alternate realities can really just be other words for the Flight response. Besides, even if you are perfectly fine with the state of things, then after you have hunted and gathered the proverbial food for the day, you can often choose to goof off. But unless you put yourself into a drug-induced coma (I won't even go into the sex thing here), our mind wants to be busy, because that's what it was designed for.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
if adobe had kept going with Atmo we could have had actual decent "worlds" going by now (and horror of horrors it was built to allow running your own server!!)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
And as we all know, IRC is just a multiplayer notepad ;)
Do people's real lives suck so badly
:(
Mine does.
that they need to frivolously spend money to create their own little world where things don't suck?
Ah, but that's where the idea falls apart. The little virtual worlds suck, too.
Many people out there just need to get laid. It's a lot cheaper than spending money...
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! Oh, wait, you weren't kidding!
s/Neuromancer/Snowcrash/. Then rethink your comment.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
What makes facebook hot right now and the whole social networking scene on is that it allows people simple access to information they want. What makes SL hot is that it's entertaining. People aren't looking, necessairly, for information as much as they are for entertainment. Combinbing those two concepts and you get a world that is too public to be private in (who would want to escape in SL if they knew you were a 35 year old father of two?) and a social network that is too complex to just get information from. End Result? nominal flop.
There are these sort of comments on everything involving There, Second Life, the Sims, WoW, games generally, Myspace, blogs or hell, just the internet, and the same thing applies in each case.
It doesn't matter that you don't get activity X and say it's crap and come up with some sort of pop sociology reason for it. People like it and have fun with it and they don't care that you don't.
If you actually want to know, it might be an idea not to phrase your question as "tell me why you suck", and if you don't, why are you on the internet and not out there getting laid?
it was a joke. (just google for "harold hewick" and you'll see what i mean)
why are you sitting in front of your computer typing original message and reading this message is a question I'd like to hear answer to. :)
I swear for the past several years google has been taking its product strategy right out of the pages of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
I call dibs on creating the black sun.
Please, give me some insight into why sites/programs like Second Life pull such large clientèle numbers. That's the part I don't get. I'm seeking answers and getting nothing but mocked. Help me out here.
The game.
How many WoW killers are out there? How many times has a follow up game ever been as successful as the game it's trying to imitate?
"Google Earth" was taken.
Personally I would not choose the I'm Feeling Lucky button on the iRACK. Worse yet the IComfy Chair, You might get tossed though the iWindows.
But then I am a heretic.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Ever see the Matrix? That's the next version of Google Earth. Now where did I put my tinfoil hat.
You must be new here.
And by here, I mean this planet...
np: Modeselektor - The Wedding Toccata Theme (Happy Birthday!)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
Then they could use a virtual world from StreetView in Google where they (to meet Canadian privacy and EU privacy restrictions) removed the images of people from the streets?
...") ...
But only if the advertising peoplebot avatars have Mute features on them - both individual ("Hi, I have Kotex, I feel fresh as a daisy!") and corporate ("I'm from Sony and
This would be far more fun.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm pretty certain I saw that on an episode of the 4400. Does Google make Promicin?
libertarian: (n) socially liberal, financially conservative; neither left, nor right.
Why spend time designing a new 3D world and not build a robust protocol to allow the interconnection of different 3D worlds into one super-3D world? We already have 3D worlds, and what we need now is to connect them all together.
The nice thing about living next to ASU Tempe is that I can ride my bike down to the Google office on the campus and wave at the employees gathering research from students with which to build their virtual world, and the graphics are amazing. Riding around the real world is plenty fun for me. Not sure why a virtual one is necessary or useful in a world where some people don't have food at all let alone a computer.
This is going to turn out to be a pretty dull MMORPG.
I hear you have to spend years farming Iraqi's in the hope of getting access to the Osama Bin Laden raid.
...you forgot to add "And get off My Lawn!"
...so that they could have sex with virtual versions of their creations. There, fixed that for you.In his novel Rainbow's End, Vernor Vinge describes society in 2025, with wearable computers, ubiquitous network connections, and contact lenses that overlay information on your field of vision in a sort of super heads-up-display. People send avatars to events and the avatars are visible to people who are physically present. People exchange instant-messages as a replacement for old-fashioned whispers, with the advantage that no-one can see that a whisper has taken place. People play games that intertwine virtual-reality and physical-reality: through their contact lenses they see other players who are physically present with changed appearances, as well as game-generated monsters and characters that are entirely virtual, and may have difficulty telling one from the other. In fact, people can change their entire view of reality by what basically amounts to applying a stylesheet to everything in your field of view or skinning your entire view of the world around you.
I didn't actually care for the plot of the novel very much, but it won this year's Hugo for best novel so plenty of people did like it! It is an interesting concept.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of these rumors about Google (the ones that aren't wishful thinking by fanboys) are actually released specifically so Google can see what people think of the ideas. The Google articles on /. are an excellent resource for the feasibility of Google adopting various ideas.
If they give me superpowers, cool sunglasses and a long black coat, I'm in!
Yeah, it *could* be collaborating... otherwise, annoying MyWorld messages wouldn't pop up every time you log onto a Windows computer in the common computing sites. ~~~~
If you're a grad student, yes! ;)
I did give you the answer - you're doing the same thing here on slashdot, except there's no 3D. Instead of doing house chores/going out for a beer/taking care of your kids/planning career/etc. - you (like me) sit here and type away questions/answers to obvious things.
You won't need to pay hundreds of bucks to do that exact same thing half way across the world. You could pop in anywhere and even be present in different locations at the same time (someone mentioned the IRC analogy above), while not worrying how to get there and back home, thus saving time, money etc.
This is the next step up from using the letters/telegraph/telephone or any invention designed to save us time by allowing communication without requiring us to be physically present.
The difference to IRC is that it's more intuitive (read: easier to use for Joe and Jane Schmoe) and in the future might allow for many cool features to be added, e.g. showing your clients (say, in Japan, France and Brazil) a product prototype (that was automatically digitized after you recorded it with a camera) and asking for their opinions.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
I'm more worried about the a company that wants to crush, or if that fails, buy, everything and move everywhere that tends to be successful, and they ain't called Microsoft. In their important quest to sell more ads and get more eyeballs, year after year, Google has to do this and use their vast resources to crush everybody else. I never build products for the Windows paltform, either you'll fail, or you'll succeed, MS will crush you, and you'll fail. This seems to be the entity Google is thriving for to be on the Internet.
If you don't like Second Life, try this site instead.
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
Give me:
An engine like Neverwinter Nights, that allows me to create a space, script it, add NPCs, items, set rules, give it a story (if i want). Allow me to make this realm instantial (for single players or groups) or shared (everyone in one instance). Allow me to publish this realm. Allow players to rate each others realms. Popular realms get hosting. Popular designers get more space. Connect the realms through a system of portals, or a hub realm.
Do this and you'll have a WoW killer.
i could design this in greater detail for a few bucks or if i get to put my name on it.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Second Life is the Metaverse in Snow Crash and the Other Plane in True Names.
This is more like Inscape in Ventus and Persistence. Another view of reality, rather than a virtual reality.
The point i was trying to quickly make (I'm overrun at work for the first time and not coping... But that's another issue!) is that Using Second Life is no different from reading or watching tv going to the movies etc. It's just a different way of escaping.
There's nothing wrong with it...
Acid House saves Souls