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Net giant Google just revealed their plans to release their version of living in a virtual world with the online 3D social arena “Lively.” Unlike the program “Second Life”, Lively allows users to enter “their world” via IE or Firefox after the initial download and installation of the program. You can make use of integrating the Internet in several ways, bring in your photos or videos that you have hosted online, email your friends inviting them to join, or use the special pre-written widgets to embed your Lively area on your blog. Currently it doesn’t work with MySpace, they are still working on that one.

“It’s integrated with the Internet. It’s not an alternate destination,” said Niniane Wang, Google’s engineering manager for the project. “Our intention is to add to your existing life.”

The whole thing reminds me of a cross between Second Life, the Sims, and this game dress up computer game I’ve seen kids play, to tell the truth. It has the whole standard “build your space"… you know… rooms, outdoor areas like fields and parks and islands. You get to dress up your little avatar and make him/her move around. Although they are shooting for a social integration that offers more than the standard email/chat mode in the way of online interaction, I don’t know if I really feel it by cruising through a virtual playground. And one that looks kind of done before at that.

It should be noted however, that Lively does have the difference from Second Life in that it has a drag and drop interface, so that is a bit more user-friendly. A few things “missing” though would be cash, and the fact that it is non-programmable, so you are limited to Google’s catalog of items in regard to your items such as clothing, furniture, hairstyles, etc. Google does say that both these things are items they are seriously thinking about adding though. But first, adding a Mac OS X client is on their priority list since it currently only works for Windows users.

Go Go Google Gadget. Wonder what’s next up the giant’s sleeve?

Read [CNet]

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