From TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/08/google-launches-virtual-world-called-lively/):
"This isn’t yet a full Second Life competitor. There’s no single world, for example, where users can move around. But it’s easy to see Google evolving this into a single online world. And then, of course, selling advertising into it. More screen shots:"

What's interesting is, this seems to be Niniane's secret project at Google. From the Google blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/be-who-you-want-on-web-pages-you-visit.html):
"A while ago, I looked around the social web and wished that it could be less static. Sure, you can leave a comment on a blog or write a text blurb on your social networking profile. But what if you want to express yourself in a more fun way, with 3D graphics and real-time avatar interactions? I started asking this question as a 20% project, and I'm excited to announce today's release of Lively by Google – a 3D virtual experience that is the newest addition to Google Labs."

Find it at http://www.lively.com/

I can't log in

[moved from "Lively is... Live :)"]

http://www.lively.com/

Second life by Google... On Windows IE or Windows Firefox.

http://www.lively.com/images/static/landing_thumb1.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YbwfOucET8

Concept : Create a room you can embed in a web page. People with the plugin (IE/FF under windows only) can chat in your room in 3D (second life like) without leaving the page (as Google Earth plugin).

FROM WHERE THAT MUSIC COMES??

Tom
I'm having "Server login error" messages at the moment as well. Probably just teething issues as other people seem to be online creating rooms.

So this is what Niniane has been working on for a few years...
Looks good. I wonder if this will tie in with opensocial somehow?

Damn. I've only got Internet access on my phone at the moment but I managed to login to the Lively website...

I am going to so hate the Internet if this **** ever got popular.

It's the FIJI project, with Google ROOMS!!! :)

If you got the "server login error", just go to http://www.lively.com/friends and log in via the web page, not the client. And you're done, you can play.

First it makes me boot Vista, then it runs as slowly as possible.... not a good start.

To startwith I had problems logging in, but it's OK now.

Should it be called GLife?

What would be awesome is a way to let people participate in the rooms at some level, maybe not in full 3d, with the browser only, no installed client.

Is that what Niniane jokingly referred to as the best project of the best company in the world, thus the best best project in the world? (disclaimer: I haven't tested it yet (on my LinBox right now), need to get access to my WinBox)

[Edit: Made small edits to the article here and there as I'm playing around with the program... here's the Blogoscoped test island, by the way: http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-1267428871595547026]

And it crashes, and it crashes, and...

Psst... Check out my shirt!!

http://www.lively.com/catalog/details?mid=-3306026513197187871

(It regularly crashes here when you close the window, and popping out a full-screen window also seems risky and can crash. I'm running a rather recent Vista laptop.)

Pretty neat stuff. I wonder if it will catch on?

Not shocked that the first version would be Windows-only, but I've read that it uses DirectX which (I think) pretty much means it will always be Windows-only.

As much as I'd like to try it, I'm not likely to go out and buy a Windows machine to do so.

Why would anyone bother...

i want this fot MAC!!!!!!!!![snipped]

Great domain name. Strange for Google to host something on a different domain than *.google.com.

it crashed. then again it crashed. then again. now i will try it a few weeks later.

WHUT!? AHhhh! What about Linux!? D=

It's down for me right now, since yesterday (though it still manages to crash my browser windows when I leave the loading dialog). Can anyone access it?

Yeah, I've been playing with it this morning, seems to be working well – no crashes. Haven't quite figured out the point of it yet though...

It works for me. Sorry I couldn't answer earlier, lively crashed my system.

>> It's the FIJI project, with Google ROOMS!!! :)

Yes it is!

<< TomHTML, Tony and I also lately saw traces of something called Google Rooms, though we aren’t 100% sure it’s related. >>

Update: I can confirm it's definitely related. Check out these logos:

http://www.google.com/fiji/r/images/room_list_logo.png
http://www.google.com/fiji/r/images/help/RoomsLogo.gif

Cached versions below in case they disappear:

http://blogoscoped.com/files/more/google-rooms-logo.png
http://blogoscoped.com/files/more/google-rooms-logo.gif

Also, it seems they're slowly removing these pages, but if you're lucky enough to hit a server that's still hosting them, you can see the Beta version of "Google Rooms" here:

http://www.google.com/fiji/r/rl

If you don't get it the first time, keep hitting Ctrl+R to do a hard reload until you get it.

It's all to do with the old Fiji service I found back in December 2006:

http://ruscoe.net/blog/2006/12/gam-and-fiji-new-google-services.asp

Also mentioned here:

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/79265.html
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/109564.html

Good pick Tony
Google Rooms / Lively uses Sketchup's 3Dwarehouse
http://www.google.com/fiji/3dwarehouse/
But Sketchup's site doesn't include models from/for Google Rooms.

Pamela Fox:
I like your other top
http://www.lively.com/catalog/details?mid=-842200731412223917
and your painting
http://www.lively.com/catalog/details?mid=-5958622127605112110

:-)

When do you think we'll see that Google in-game advertising acquisition come to use in here?

Adscape Media ? Soon :)

I f you can have user generated content, it would be good for the room admin to be allowed to monetize his island :)

Interesting stuff. I created a 'gallery room' filled with wall mounted pictures to display my Picasaweb collections.

http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=4523302008604939268

The quality of the images is pretty bad though, as is the cropping / sizing of the photos in the frame. Has potential though.

Nice first try, reminds me of early Habbo Hotel. What I'm waiting for is

1. User Created whatever. I mean, Google OWNS Sketchup and Keyhole. This is a "duh". Also sane economics, Second Life got this mostly right.

2. Merge code and content with Google Earth so your "rooms" can be in the "real world". There are privacy issues here, so leave it Country and State/Province. There'd be 2 smaller clients, a more robust 3D engine and several "shared libraries" of code. Then build Lively Earth as a Google Talk plugin and kill IMVU.

3. Do #2 with the Google Web Client, so I don't have to leave my web browser for a quick chat or edit. Speaking of chat, Also, Google could justify shoving the whole 3D engine into Gears with an API and that would be nifty.

4. Prettier screenshots. Yeesh, compression artifacts abound.

I'll still play with it eventually.

Maybe I've gotten out of touch with why people use the internet, but I really don't understand why this is interesting. I think it was on the blog of an ex-Googler who had rejoined Microsoft that the comment "Google makes products that help people waste time" was made.

Lively "Terms" (http://www.lively.com/html/terms.html), "You agree to release Google, its affiliates, and their agents, contractors, officers, and employees (collectively, "Google Parties"), from all claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) arising out of or in any way connected with a dispute. " This seems a bit broad – as the sentence isn't specific to Lively, just "a dispute". It's in the "Your intellectual property rights", which gets me nervous.

Current technical limitation – only 20 people visible per room, as highlighted in "Legal Notices".

I may give this a try once the terms are cleaned up a bit.

It's slow as hell.. but.. well, let's see how Google handles this second-life/imvu/etc thing

<<Nice first try, reminds me of early Habbo Hotel.>> That's what i was thinking haha

I don't think a merge with Google earth would be good. The earth has a limited amount of space. Anyways, they release early and often so i'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of changes.

Its going very slow for me now but earlier it was just fine so i'm not sure what's up.

Also, i ran into some Googlers in one of the rooms. One was a contracted tester who had been working on Lively for 9 months and they said that the Linux version is almost ready, they just need the next version of flash (version 9 had issues). Flash 10 beta is out so hopefully i can use this on my own computer soon. I've been borrowing my brother's crappy vista box for this.

So everyone seems to think this whole thing is a useless waste of time, but can anyone think of some practical uses for it? I'm sure Google had to have some reason and long term plan for putting so much work into this. ...right?

I can see it having a use for displaying and discussing... stuff.

The test room I put together is an art gallery based on my Picasweb pictures, and if they improve the viewability of photos in Lively I can see that as being a more intuitive way for people to view and discuss artwork than a conventional website with forum. You can see people milling around the most 'popular' images for example.

Taking that a step further it could be a cool way of doing a product launch for something physical – say a mobile phone – with detailed models of the product along with YouTube demo/promo videos being played within the scene.

If they integrate more 'stuff' – like a whiteboard, Google docs, and other collaborative tools I can see it potentially getting used as a virtual workplace. Still a bit away from that though :)

yeah, especially since the graphics aren't nearly as good as they need to be for that sort of stuff

What I find amazing is that Google trains people to enter the Google Account credentials into a random popup window launched from another domain. E.g. when you're logged out and then visit the TechCrunch post with that room widget (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/08/google-launches-virtual-world-called-lively/) and you click it, a Google Lively dialog without any URL bar asks for your password. Must be great for phishers, as this process is easily faked. They can fake it anyway, but this time Google helps them by making the "trust the URL-less popup" process accepted behavior, when they should actually do an intermediate redirect to a google.com domain.

PS: I made Blogoscoped Island editable for everyone at the moment http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-1267428871595547026

Could someone post the Windows setup (direct download link), i'm on ubuntu and the Lively site won't provide me with the Windows link. thx.

Josue- there's a link from http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=12928&iTestingId=28301 in the Wine application database. It doesn't work, i tried it.

I came to this page through a link in a picture frame on the island, pretty cool.

hello every one
i can not download the software

so how can i do it

tahnks