Comments on: Web3.0 Watch Part 1: Google Lively

By: Matt Crosslin

Matt Crosslin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:20:52 +0000

This may have been a spam message – not sure. But Ticket4One is a dating site that does have a virtual chat – but really doesn’t compare to a virtual world application like Lively. Also, only singles are allowed in to Ticket4One, so it’s not that god of an educational solution.

By: rayq

rayq — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:31:18 +0000

I tried it and i think its a little bit too much of a cartoon for me. Ticket4one has a similar thing but atlaest i can see real people from the 3d Virtual Chat

(Edited by Matt Crosslin - original submission Wednesday, 30 July 2008, 12:31 AM)

By: Matt Crosslin

Matt Crosslin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:11:34 +0000

I agree with you. Hope they improve and expand it. Also, to note – you can stream Picassa slide shows to objects :) (trying to convert Katrina from Flickr to Picassa). Also, just a random thought, you could always use Skype or GTalk for audio – which I hope gets integrated with this.

By: Katrina Adams

Katrina Adams — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:16:33 +0000

Yeesh! I can take a hint!

... But before I comment, I'd just like to add names/labels to your photo: From left to right: me (u2katrina), Matt (edugeek Mat), Darren (Dr.Crone), and Qin (sophief)

Anyway, here are my comments:

Still pretty basic, but I liked it.
Moving around is weird at first, but pretty easy. Just drag your avatar where you want it to go.
Nice that it's pretty much G and PG rated
Can *very* quickly set up a room and email people a direct link to join.
Like that you can easily add objects with youtube videos embedded. (However, I wish you could set how far you want the audio to go. Right now, if you set up a video, you can hear it throughout the entire room ... even in the larger rooms available.)
I can't wait until they add more interactive objects (i.e. ability to add Flickr slideshow, rss feeds, etc.)
Nice that you can set a room so that anyone can add/move/remove items. Can become kind of a virtual wiki.
Currently set to text-only chat, which is nice b/c of it's simplicity, but I know a few profs who would much rather be able to speak rather than type
As Matt commented yesterday while partying on Darren's rooftop, it'd be nice to be able to fly.
There *has* to be some way to turn off the auto-animations. Just b/c I type a happy-face emoticon does not mean I want my avatar to start laughing. :P
It might just be me, but it seemed a little bit of a memory hog. My computer, which has a very decent graphics card and 1.5gb RAM, had a few problems.
It'll be nice once we're able to generate our own content ... although once you do that, the whole G/PG rating is out the window. :)

Just my initial thoughts. The announcement on Google's blog describe's Lively as a '20% project', so it's exciting to speculate what the 100% finished product will be like. (Related Ars Technica article.)

By: Matt Crosslin

Matt Crosslin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:51:00 +0000

Here is a photo of the EduGeeks exploring Lively yesterday (at Darreb's rooftop condo he calls 'Dallas'):

Hopefully, we'll see some comments with their experiences soon. (hint, hint)

By: Katrina Adams

Katrina Adams — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:17:59 +0000

And it looks like the (Second Life) Lindens and people associated with SL are paying attention.

Linden Lab's room - http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=1024337222374851925 - created by Pathfinder Linden
Cristiano's Room - http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=1831447478604254846 - created by Cristiano Midnight. Not directly associated with LL, but definitely associated with SL. Creator of Snapzilla and SLUniverse, and regular contributor to the (no longer running) SL podcast SecondCast.