Earlier in the week, we reported on the social media initiative from Google called Lively, a virtual entertainment site.  Several responded with some excellent insight that I would like to share with you today.

Pierre DeBois -

Although new, I think the ability to display visual content relevant to your firm and have the world of Lively linked to the company website or blog to add a new component of branding. To a degree it may make either a website or a blog irrelevant if the content is combined in a certain way. 

Gerald Inman -

There is some merit to a “Virtual World” concept for conveying information. IBM and Linden Labs have begun to work together to create an “Open Sim” concept in which an avatar can move from one virtual world to another.

(http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/07/08/ibm-linden-lab-interoperability-announcement)

Since information transference has been the goal of these virtual systems, there is merit for this technology. “Wallace Jackson” hit on a key point in that computing power at the desktop level has increased significantly over the years so the success of this technology is far better now than the mid 90s when “The Palace” first came on the scene.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palace_(computer_program))

I suspect that Google’s interest has to do with running advertisements in these virtual worlds. Although the security is not as strong as “IBM’s Metaverse”, as Google matures the technology, I am sure there will be opportunities for business.

(http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/07/09/googles-lively-vs-ibm-metaverse-and-second-life-virtual-world)

With so many eyeballs in these environments, advertisers would want to capture that market as well. If Google can build an advertisement model for their Google Lively, then they will be a viable competitor.

I hope this information helps you Christopher.

Links:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/07/08/googles-lively/
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9984909-2.html 

Tim Whale

As a keen proponent of virtual space and a develop of 3 years standing in second life, I have great enthusiasm for developments such as this.

I created my 3d room on day one and sent out a subscriber list invitation to an event in the room for the weekend.

Within 3 hours of that invite going out, I had received 18 acceptances, despite the recipients not havign heard of lively, for obvious reasons.

There is no real comparison between lively and second life. Lively has the potential to being a superb tool for marketing events, I would expect my rooms to be empty when events are not being hosted, as when I seek to drive 3d contonual traffic, I use second life, as it is a far more interesting ‘hang-out’ platform.

But for an event, lively suits my target market and requires no lengthy or steep learning curve.

The main issue with lively is the inability of mac users to gain access.

—————————————————————————————

You can join this discussion by posting a comment on this blog.  We will bring you more thoughts next week as well as some more info on online video and other topics.  Have a good weekend.