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Google Lively Review
joc1985 writes "An objective review of Google Lively after a few hours of playing around. It seems to be a bad copy of Second Life. Somehow all the rooms are crowded, and porn has made its way in there already"
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Billions of dollars in capital and they give us a retread of AlphaWorld from 1996? What's next, GoogleMUD?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is hardly an objective review. Then again the Slashdot submitter is also the author of the blog...
When you read comments like "if it wasn't for the logo at the top left you wouldn't even know it was owned and operated by Google. The page is blend with no much color or style" it really makes you wonder. Does it matter that Google didn't brand it everywhere they could like other companies? In classical Google fashion, they took a simplified approach, which itself is a form of Google branding (just look at google.com)
Then the reviewer goes on "It is 100% centered around the mouse, this for me is a horrible defect that must be solved immediately. I happen to know every keyboard shortcut known to man kind (sic) and I absolutely hate the mouse. I am sure there are many people like me out there. " Well good for you buddy. And great research you've done there in assuming that everyone else is just like you.
Finally he concludes with saying he found "several Sex oriented rooms". A quick glance through the room index shows maybe a dozen of the 1000+ rooms that are listed there have a sexual theme. Seems like a pretty good ratio considering the amount of porn to be found on the internet and people's computers in relationship to the rest of the content on the web.
But then again, remember this blog is from "The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
What more could you ask for???
You write that as if it's a bad thing.
I'm just waiting for the blackjack and hookers.
MABASPLOOM!
Does that imply that a copy of Second Life could somehow be good?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It was slow. It was clunky. The interface was pretty disappointing. Hell, even the 'Avatar choosing' part was badly done. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be designing my own somewhere or just 'using someone elses'. It seems to be a half-baked beta indeed.
Are you really that surprised?
Goatse I guess I can understand, Rick Rolls are damn funny but really, is there a huge endorphin rush that comes from saying 'first post' that I am missing? I would think that after the first thousand times it really would not be fun for even the most childish of people.
~ Ron Fitzgerald
At the risk of stating the obvious -- yes. Slashdot editors frequently approve self-posted links and have done so for a long, long time.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
If it's anything like Second Life, that's what you'll be saying a lot of.
This space for rent.
It seems to be a bad copy of Second Life.
That's a severe accusation. I tried Second Life. I thought of it as all the design 'quality' and intelligence of myspace, now with 3D goodness...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Actually, calling it a beta is being generous. There are a lot of interface quirks and bugs to work out, and the content (as far as avatars, furniture, clothes, etc.) definitely feels more like a sample of what will be available. Once they open it up to user created content, I imagine there will be no shortage of "stuff". FWIW, I didn't really have the connection problems the reviewer had. The whole thing thing gets a little laggy in a crowded room, especially if the room is full of junk, but I didn't have any problems getting in.
As far as the sex themed rooms, they seemed pretty tame to me, at least for now. (Uh, not that I checked them out or anything.) You're limited to streaming videos from YouTube, so you can't show anything that wouldn't pass muster there. You can also display static images in a "picture frame", but the frames seems to be pretty broken at the moment. They seem to only display a small portion of the image, regardless of the resolution. So, at least for the moment, it's pretty much impossible to display anything pornographic. I imagine once they open it up to user created content, though, it will become yet another haven for furries.
I looked at this the other day and it seemed to claim to be a "Windows only" service. My Windows system was busy at the time, so I didn't investigate further and it was unclear if they planned on supporting other platforms in future. That's a non-starter in my book.
Not as tight as Youtube policy? The only region where they may be 'tight' is in removing copyrighted material.... nothing else..... Just look at the recently uploaded, most viewed by day, week or maybe even month.... more than half of them involve some almost naked girl in the preview and sex based themes (although they may not contain actual sex scenes) but that still is not tight implementation....
Exactly.... Christian and Unbiased can't really be said in the same sentence and with a straight face.
AccountKiller
That assumes that there some limit to the supply of easily excitable, childish people out there.
Hello, I'm new to this ./ website. Can you please tell me know to moderate the summary (-1, binspam)?
TIA!
it's not interesting enough in itself for me to want to spend time playing with it.
Looking at it in terms of a "20%" product that one of their engineers whipped out on their 'spare' time, it's fairly cool. I don't think they really expected the level of interest that would be shown though, or they would have held it back a bit longer for some more polish.
It has been in testing before this current release. I can't remember which, but it was released to a university a year prior for their student community to play with.
In a year, when it's been hammered on a bit more and Google either rolls it into a full fledged product or cuts it loose, I'll start paying more attention.
I believe we're using the term "nuked the fridge" now.
Anybody else feel that Google is biting off more than they can chew?
I mean, smart people work there to be sure, they have a neat work environment and they excel at search. But everything else they do, and there might be a few exceptions here and there, doesn't hit the mark as far as being "top tier" like their search is. Gmail is probably their best product, albeit free but subsidized by advertising, and then Picasa and Google Analytics. Otherwise a lot of things are very 'meh'... their online office suite, Picasa Web, etc...
Dunno, I think they need to reorganize themselves a bit before they spiral out of control with 'extra' projects, that they lose control of the one thing they are best at -- search.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Everything at Google is Beta. They're like a bad project manager. They can start things. They can even make them pretty good, but they'll never actually finish anything. :)
I can't comment much on the game. I primarily use Linux machines, so I'll have to plug in a Windows machine, and see if it turns on, before I can play.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I'm pretty sure slashdoter and unbiased can't be said in the same sentence with a stright face either. In fact you have to work pretty hard to find anyone who is unbiased.
....apart from me I'm very un biased....
That's not the definition of unbiased. Perhaps the word you're looking for is unsolicited. Also you didn't call your review unbiased. You called it objective but your review is actually subjective. For future reference, objective = facts, subjective = opinions.
So its a new Web 2.0-esque masturbation party where people can chat with avatars, instead of on AIM or god forbid, calling them on the phone.
Do you have a lawn, and if so, any particular thoughts on where I should be in relation to it?
Bow-ties are cool.
If these virtual worlds included tagging other users with different "reject" or "approve" ratings, we could make pivate notes of who we reject and approve association with. People could even tag themselves with these ratings, which we could accept or ignore at our own option. And if the world included a social network function, we could adopt our friends' (or, probably unwisely, strangers' or enemies') ratings. If we could attach simple logic to the social network's ratings implications, like "friend of my friend is my friend" or "enemy of my enemy is my friend", or "30:10:60% friend:enemy:unknown is my friend, unless my friend X is their enemy, in which case they're my enemy", we'd be able to use our real world social skills to screen access to virtual characters.
That system seems like a natural fit for Google's Orkut social network. With any luck, those tagging/rating/screening systems will be exposed in a standard protocol that will let us merge all our social networks in the separate sites into one big happy family (and mortal enemies, and true strangers), with all points between.
--
make install -not war
So, I installed and played with it for a few hours...
Not impressed...
It takes for-ever to load, and then everyone stands around changing their settings, waiting for it to load, adding or moving or deleting furniture...
Chatting is the last thing on people's minds...and the way you can interact with others is odd...body slamming, slapping, kissing...
So there is a lot of that going on...and most of the guys in one chat room had female avatars...
I don't see it as the "next generation" of chat...text is still too easy and useful...
--E--
Porn gets blocked by web filters. Google's business goals for Google Video and YouTube are to generate ad revenue. What content generates that revenue is irrelevant.
What's this guy talking about, porn? That's what the web was mad for. And what's wrong with the mouse? Who surfs for porn with both hands free? ;)
Its a well known fact that secondLife has really taken off and made a hit with everyone that can pay for it. It is essentually one virtual world rather than many virtual rooms. I really wish Google would have taken this approach rather than just launch some embedled 3-d chat rooms. There is so much more potential, if Google wanted to, it could take a majority of secondLife's users just by modleing after it except making many aspects of it free. Their was also the potential of virtual ads, virtual web browsing, and opening it up to developers to really (and I do mean really) play with. Right now it looks too unrealistic and childish.
I am a lowly high school student... please dont assume im an expert.
Downloaded and installed the app and logged in - after over a minute of waiting for a room to load I closed the browser. I went back to site and clicked on 'help', and found (as is typical of Google) not documentation but forums where people share what learned about how the app works by luck and random clicking about.
Yet another Google product tossed up without much thought, development, testing, or follow through... Trusting that the googledroids around the world will use it anyhow even though it lacks key features and functionality.
I probably won't be back, as like most of Google's suite it seems destined to be a distant second place also-ran.