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Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World
no.good.at.coding writes "Google has launched a Windows-only, in-browser (you need to install a client first, though) 3D avatar world — Lively — that you can embed in websites and use to interact with other people. It's not as expansive as Second Life yet, but expect things to get better."
we can easily say "apparently there are enough people who are sensitive enough to be able to empathize even through a virtual avatar in an online world".
the way i see it, many of the people who label the online world as 'virtual' are rather emotionally challenged people. there is nothing 'virtual' in the online world. there is a person behind that avatar, just like you. s/he can make you laugh, make you angry, sad, engage in heated up philosophical conversation, or do stuff together. stuff done with other people in an online environment is no less valuable than stuff done in an offline environment. you can go get drunk in a local pub while talking or you can get drunk in front of the computer talking with same people the same stuff. there is no difference other than physical proximity.
if you NEED physical proximity to be able to feel connected with people, then i'd say that thats a sign of 'emotionally challengedness' in the form of weak empathy capability.
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I think that's mostly because there's nothing to do but gambling and sex - and they banned gambling. If more companies built stores in SL and sold real goods through it, if newspapers made virtual newsrooms where users could watch and read videos and articles, if other content owners made SL versions of their websites, there would be much much more to do. A chain reaction might start where a crowd attracts a crowd and so on. Maybe Lively will help drive that. I can hope, at least.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I agree with the social site disappointment.
I use a 3D site (expo3d.com) to hold conferences with customers on product updates and use the 3D feature to really demonstrate what I'm saying, holding up objects, pointing at on the object with my avatar and can use my voice to offer more commentary than texting could accomplish. Texting is sooo 1990's. Use your voice. It really helps.
In my business, some customer updates are mandatory. We used to fly people in and out for the update meetings but now we can, for the smaller updates, use this software and in 15 minutes be done. We still all meet face to face a couple of times a year but it's not a monthly obligation.
We've had 100-200 customers routinely join us for our updates. We place our own teams in the audience to answer questions one-on-one via text or voice. We circulate documents. We post advertisements. And the customers love it.
So I've found a way to save money using this type of application with no perverts or gambling.
It has a company with billions in cash and an army of nerds with 10% of their free time to do whatever they want.
1, it's 80/20, as in 20% of their time is supposed to be used for free exploration.
2, I've talked to some Googlers who say it's more like 100/20, as in you have a huge workload so if you want to stay after hours and do your 20% you can go right ahead, but only about 1% of engineers can be bothered to do so. Especially since Google owns your bright idea once you come up with it.
the interesting parts of second life are the virtual economy, the ability to build and script complex objects, the ability to buy 'land'.
The only interesting one of these is the scripting.
The rest is just side effects of using centralized servers. I am not interested in any virtual 3d world that isn't decentralized, meaning that anyone can set up their own server with their own rules, with the ability to easily and seemlessly travel between servers. Something like a 3d version of the www.
I know that it's cool now to hate google and all, but I have NEVER seen anything from them that I didn't admire at least somewhat, and for most things I find them unbeatable.
If they came out with gClippy I'd have to give it a try, and I'll give you 3:1 odds that it would be surprisingly useful.