Feature: Lively - Google's Contribution to the 3D Social Web?

Today Google announced Lively, a browser-based virtual environment that will tie in to social networks like Facebook, OpenSocial, and MySpace, as well as Google's other products like YouTube and Picasa. Lively, an evolving product out of Google Labs, may not be the massive, Google Earth-style environment that some imagined when rumors surfaced that Google was testing a virtual world at ASU.  It is, though, still Google. And that counts for a lot. For Mel Guymon, Google's Head of 3D Operations (and former There.com developer and IMVU Co-Founder), Google has three advantages.

"One is just Google’s reach," Guymon told Virtual Worlds News. "Google making a play validates the space like no one else. We’re basically saying this is a real space and everyone is doing this. Two, while the engineering is a small group of really talented folks, we made a huge investment of this. We’re going to launch with 8 completely different avatars. We’ve got 2 or 3 times that that we’re going to launch over time. The investment and polish to make that content, I just haven’t seen elsewhere. I’m very pleased they allowed us to do that. Third, the implementation of it takes the best of the space, rich avatars and a large catalog of virtual goods, which by the way is free, and have it be a part of your existing social network, which is the big wave right now. That’s really the silver bullet."

So What's the Downside?

"There’s no argument whether Google represents a good distribution model. There’s no contest," said Reuben Steiger, CEO, Millions of Us, who has been working with Google for at least six months as a preferred developer and is now bringing the National Geographic Channel in as the first brand to Lively.  "With respect to the particular flavor that they’re serving up first, I think you’re going to see a lot of blowback at first from people that don’t matter. The Second Life cognoscenti. They’ll be pissed because they can’t build stuff and blah, blah, blah. The real test is whether other people like it. If they do, that’s when it gets interesting."

Before looking at why the other people might like it, and I suspect plenty will, why will the cognoscenti be so upset?

For starters, compared to something like Second Life, Lively might seem like a limited option for the future of the future of 3D, real-time interaction on the Internet. There's no built-in economy or currency, which is a driving force in many virtual worlds. Likewise, users can create content in the persistent environments, but not in the way that many traditional virtual worlds users are used to.

In Lively, most users can't create 3D models or textures to add to their scenes. Instead, they draw from a free library of hundreds of thousands of virtual goods created by a 15-person team at Google with, as Guymon put it, "an unlimited budget," headed by Jeff Matsuda, formerly at Warner Bros., and a 200+-person team of international contractors. Users can also add in content from Google sites like YouTube and Picasa.

In other words, most likely you can't choose what your virtual television looks like and you can create what goes on it, but you can't build the set itself. Others can, though.

"We’re integrated with Google Gadgets. We additionally run gadgets inside the 3D window. That API is working today, and it’s less than months away to having the full on integreated gadget to draw on the wall. That’s user-created content. Video is the content that we have  today. As far as 3D user-created content and textures, it’s by invite only. You send a request and we approve the request as a developer and you sign a developer TOS. We’re going to be very aggressive about that, much more so than others."

That's why there are preferred partners, like Millions of Us and Rivers Run Red, some of whom have been working for several quarters with Google and will now be creating content for users and brands. (See RRR's demo.)

Can Those Be Upsides?

I didn't get the chance to follow up on the lack of a built-in economy with Guymon, but he did discuss further interactive options. More importantly, the developers pool is already fairly large and will likely soon be expanding with the launch.

"We have a couple hundred from our trusted pool," said Guymon. "We did a beta at ASU, and we have some from their very strong computer department. We have a slew of creative agencies involved because there’s a lot of interest from the brand side to put that content in there. I think that comes in part because Google has a pretty strong reputation--they know we're not going to be putting porn in there--and they’re looking at it and thinking it’s a safe place to enter."

And there's already interest from the developer community.

"It captures a lot of what people have been looking for," said Peter Haik, CEO of Metaversatility. "The small download and just about instant accessibility make it an awesome solution for 3D on the Web. I can't wait to see how it develops and what possibilities exist for developers."

Those developers, in fact, are using the same toolkit that Google used to build its own content in developing lively. Built in part on Emergent's  Gamebryo technology, the system includes everything from interactive objects and avatars to particle effects. What Google is still working on, and part of the reason content creation is restricted, is a copyright protection system.

"Part of the reason we’re waiting is that we want to make sure we can do it right," said Guymon. "The tools to make the complaints, DMCA takedowns, those are things we have today. You can right-click on a product and submit a product complaint. We just haven't tested it as widely as we'd like."

Since inappropriate environments, brand protection, and copyright issues have long been the rallying cry for critics of marketing in virtual worlds, that limited protection could be a silver bullet for Google as much as its ties to social networking.

User Appeal

Speaking of, it's been my bet for a while that a tight integration with popular social networks would be one of the keys to mainstreaming virtual worlds, and Guymon, not himself a Facebook user, says the integration was done by "a hardcore Facebook user."

In fact, he adds that "the standard use case we’re looking for is someone who’s going to embed this in their Facebook page."

There was speculation, though (including some from me), that Google's play would move in a different direction. With platforms like Google Earth and its own OpenSocial tools, many had expected Google to create its own environment.

"I’m not going to forecast anything for Earth. That’s a separate team," said Guymon. "The goal of this project was to allow everyone who has access to a computer and current hardware to have access. You don’t have to be geeky or a gamer. We’re after a wider audience. We don’t want people to go away from their social networks. When you join other virtual worlds, you’re making a commitment to really be there specifically. We don’t want that. We want people to use Lively where they are. Google with our reach is very well placed to do that. For me, personally, that was the best way to go."

It seems like there will be plenty of interest. If nothing else, there's plenty of competition.

With Google's plugin-only approach to 3D on the Web, it's already drawing comparisons to Vivaty, which only yesterday went into public beta. With its approach to using rooms as the basic connecting point for the virtual world (though Guymon says rooms can go up to several kilometers in size before losing resolution, and he expects that problem to be solved soon), Lively has also drawn some comparisons to IMVU.

"While some early commentators have compared Lively to Second Life, the better comparison is with IMVU," explained IMVU CEO Cary Rosenzweig via email. "The core of Lively content are: avatars, rooms and catalog.  This is true for IMVU as well, though IMVU offers home pages, groups, forums and more.  In particular, Lively chose the IMVU-like metaphor of the virtual "room" instead of a sprawling virtual world.  So, people might start thinking of the virtual world space with IMVU and Lively at one end, focusing on avatars and rooms, versus Second Life and others with large tracts of virtual land."

That's not surprising since Guymon was a co-founder at IMVU and left for Google after the Internet giant unsuccessfully tried to buy IMVU in October 2005.  IMVU doesn't seem to hold any grudges, though. Rosenzweig, who came to the company after Google's acquisition attempt, calls Lively "a validation of the virtual world space," which is also large enough to hold both competitors.

"In this case, Google is formidable," said Rosenzweig who compared the competition to his time at Intuit fighting off product attacks from Microsoft.  "They are likely to be extremely successful quickly because they are rich and can leverage seemingly billions of visitors.  The category will be big enough for both of us to succeed."

I'm inclined to think Rosenzweig might be right. Combining social networking, free virtual worlds, and Web connections hits about all the sweet spots that has been drawing both VC money (which Lively certainly doesn't need) and audience.

Impact for Virtual Worlds?

"I think over the last ten years, you’ve seen several companies try to play in the space and a lot of them have come and gone," said Guymon. "Second Life is out there and has gotten a lot of press and has done a lot to validate it. Our goal is to get everyone on the Web using 3D and to validate it as a part of the social experience. If we [as an industry] are going to do it, I think getting someone like Google to do it is crucial. And since we are doing it, I think we’re going to look back at having had Google do it as crucial."

That's been a common sentiment from everyone I've spoken to in the short time since the announcement, both those that are participating in Lively already and those that aren't.

"I think this is great for the virtual worlds space, and should help with market education, industry credibility and overall adoption," Giff Constable, COO of the Electric Sheep Company, said via email. "It think it is a really nice first implementation for what the Google team was trying to accomplish."

The credibility that having a company Google in the virtual worlds space is hard to ignore. With major media companies like Disney and Viacom already involved, the addition of an Internet and software giant gives only more credence to the viability of virtual worlds. And Google's consumer-friendly model will likely help mainstream just the idea of virtual worlds.

A bigger question, especially from those possibly disgruntled with Lively's scaled back approach to user-created content and economic options, might be what comes next. Considering that yesterday's buzz was all about the announcement from IBM and Second Life and interoperability, industry observers may be wondering about which path is the closest to that Holy Grail for the 3D Web.

"They’re targeting a really broader audience with casual users," said Steiger. "And these casual spaces can become the real-time, face-to-face component of the social Web. It’s creating a room from templates and a large database."

I'd bet my money that Lively will later feature more options for creating rooms and make it easier to treat the individual room as a Web page, layering the 3D on top of regular HTML. For now, though, the closer analogy seems to be creating Web pages only by cutting and pasting existing code instead of from the ground up. There's already plenty of people creating those code snippets, which should give current users plenty of options, but to me the real idea of the Web takes complete openness.

"It’s customizing and curating rather than creating," countered Steiger. "Google has taken the largest barrier to entry off the table. In doing so, they haven’t closed the door to larger aspects of development. The cutting and pasting is putting rooms into social networks, which have roughly 500 million users. A subset of those users will want a real-time face-to-face interaction. It makes sense to me to approach it that way."

That's the upside for me. Past Google's name and reputation, the limitation on content and casual approach could eventually lead to something much, much bigger.

"Second Life’s early adopter population was people who were actually creating content," said Steiger. "They tried to cross the chasm to the mainstream. Google started by targeting the mainstream and taking on the burden to create that content. They know if they want to be successful, they need to open that up eventually."

And, of course, the 3D Web may not even be on Google's road map. Observers may put an onus on Google to shoulder that innovation because of its name and pedigree, but the company may be more interested in simply creating another good product.

Regardless, it's not entirely clear where Lively will be going. Guymon says that Google has a monetization plan, but that there's nothing to announce. That's similar to the launch of plenty of other Google Lab services. The only thing he'd add is that the plan is to monetize in a way that won't negatively affect the user.

As it is, the only real requirement of Lively is to start getting those users.

"Our mandate was to get usage," Guymon said of his business plan. "The difference from the startups I’ve been in is that startups have to turn a profit or die. All the projects in Google are run as startups, but we’re given an incredibly amount of rope to be successful. We’re not about to run out of money and die. For Google it’s the opportunity to get into a space that we think is really going to be important in the long term. For me personally, I think this is going to make people’s online experiences richer and more interesting. For generations coming up from age 4, this is what they expect. For Google, that was really the stake in the road."

Comments

[User]

Excelent article! Much better than what is on Techmeme.

[Nate Randall]

Very nice article. Great work in fact!

[len]

They took the path long predicted. Screw the open aspects of interoperability and user-contributed content and just built a library with a small footprint add-in.

So much for the IBM alliance. It will be fun to see who decides to ally with whom now that there is an unbeatable monopolist at the door: The Googler.

Now it comes down to finding out if people really do want a 3D web in which there isn't that much to do but stand around and chat about each other's avatars.

And once again, the trailblazers will be pushed aside into the anonymity of PageRank invisibility and left to die there while a new history is written with preselected winners as The Innovators. Too bad. Once again, history loses to cash on hand.

Sad. The web keeps repeating its birth cycle step for narcissistic step.

[Patricia Garcia]

Excelent article, indeed

[SocialBang Chat]

This is a competitor to us some ways, but because our chat rooms are 2D and "mixed reality", I think it will actually probably be a positive given that we're now looking for investment.

[Jamal]

We were waiting for something much more ambitious, a VW based on Google Earth, instead something quite similar to other services. Twinverse has achieved what we were waiting from google a virtual world based on our real geography and really scalable. Twinverse is the first step to the mixed reality goal, and based on the PtoP Solipsis research program at France Telecom.
Twinverse is in open beta since this week
www.twinverse.com

[Claude Gelinas]

The upsides for Google Lively are too numerous to list here, especially after your excellent article although I would've liked to see a Mac version.

Right now, Lively is exclusively compatible with Windows Vista/XP... but not the Mac.

I guess that'll be added, over time ; )

[Ron Edwards]

Great article!

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Very good article, remaining sufficiently neutral and unbiased to stick to facts, good research, and letting key players speak for themselves.

Reuben's comments are wholly inappropriate for someone who made his millions by pushing Second Life content to his corporate customers, but, then again, he's a marketeer and knows what he's doing. Still, there are nicer ways of telling innovators and enthusiasts of real virtual worlds to shut up and leave the market.

Google seems to believe that the power of social networking is to embed chatrooms on webpages. They may be right on that. In fact, Lively seems to only have that to offer, and even so, on a limited scale: if there are more than 20 people in a chatroom, the system advises participants to leave and have fun on their own rooms instead. A bit strange to "foster community", but perhaps that's not their point.

Chatrooms are great, and besides adding profile pictures, the only "innovation" on web-based chat since IRC went live has been Flash-based video. It's hard to find a webcam-chat room that is not a dating place, though. There are a few, or at least, there are some that have no-dating rooms in the middle of the rest of the "Hot babe action" rooms. They're hard to find, though, and they're not integrated into Facebook or MySpace pages — although they could be. It's just that nobody thought of doing that yet.

The success of those rooms is that there is no hard configuration to do: just click on a checkbox, and the Flash-based video will always work, no matter what hardware or operating system or video camera you've got. Simplicity is the key, and all those webcam chatrooms excel on being simple.

So that seems the market that Google's trying to enter? Interactive chatrooms and online dating services? I'm well aware that's about 20% of the overall Internet — so, close to 400 million users or so who are an interested audience. Using avatars instead of cameras will make shy people engage more actively in chatrooms? (These days, if you're not willing to turn your camera on, you get ostracised by the rest of the room, since you've certainly got something to hide...)

If that's Google's point, they've certainly got what it takes to succeed (after several iterations of their clumsy interface; but I'm assuming that 200 Google developers might be able to fix that quickly enough, ie. in one or two years).

However, I can't but express my sorrow that Google's going for such a market instead of doing so much more. For instance, the argument of closing up the participation of developers in Lively is seriously hurting the whole concept. Social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook (or even OpenSocial-based ones!) have grown thanks to the ability of generating a huge amount of user-created content, allowing people to tweak the whole layouts and add whatever they wished. Sure, it means that MySpace pages get uglified in no time, but it also allows so much to be integrated with them. Lively, by contrast, is like going back to a Microsoft-style proprietary system: you do what Google allows you to do, and nothing more, using the pretext to "keep it simple".

What a far cry from the launch of Google Talk, some years back! Google could have created their own proprietary technology and completely close it and just push it into our faces, because they're Google, "the company that does no evil". They did nothing of the sort. They provided a minimalistic, web-based and application-based chatting system using an open protocol, and since Day One of GTalk, they encouraged XMPP/Jabber networks to interconnect with them. They even quickly added voice calls to GTalk. Even today, years after GTalk was launched, companies are still using tools to integrate with GTalk in unforeseen ways: my favourite ones are Twitter and Ping.fm integration, so I can use a single client to get these kinds of feeds, too. Creating a "GTalk bot" is uncannily easy, and the great thing is that it's so open that even if you utterly despise Google and refuse to use any of their products, you can easily interconnect with any GTalk user through open protocols.

Nothing of the sort has been announced for Lively. Instead, the primary focus of Google seems to be: "let's close this up as much as legally possible" and keep everybody out of it. So the only thing you can do is to embed a room somewhere on your Facebook or MySpace profile, go to GTalk, and tell your friends to join your room to chat a bit there. That's all. With ludicrous animations and cartoonish avatars, a 10 MByte "plugin", slow access (as everything gets streamed), and a limit of 20 people, plus a very cumbersome chat interface (the GTalk-like "chat history" is great, but it covers half or two thirds of the screen — and following bubbles is simply impossible for an extended time), I wonder who gave Google the idea that this would be a "good thing".

I can imagine that one attraction will be getting people to listen to your music and comment on it. MySpace, for instance, has been incredibly successful in attracting the small music bands (and even some larger ones). Now they can get their fans join Lively and listen to live concerts. But... here is the catch... you can only upload 512 KBytes of audio to your room. Even a moderately small concert with low-quality sound will take ten times as much, if you're using MP3... and you'll need to know some audio engineering basics to be able to do that. You can't use streaming, so you'll have to do that outside Lively. And, well, you can't figure out who is playing, of course — there is no way to animate your avatar to play a guitar, for instance. So clearly the music scene is not what Google expects to attract from the MySpace crowd.

The deeper you dig, the less clear what the target is. Probably just the casual user. I've visited a few rooms, sure, and created my own (just a YouTube video and an uploaded music to test it), but sincerely, I miss the point of why I should be there at all, as opposed to go to another chatroom (or even a GTalk group) and talk to people instead. There is nothing "encouraging" me to go to Lively what I do elsewhere. It's not even because it's simple and fast — because it's neither. Worse, as a Mac user, I have to launch Windows in Parallels, tweak settings which are beyond casual users, and wait several minutes in order to load anything. Then I have to find where my friends are. There is no way to contact them before I'm logged in to Lively, so I need to ask them in GTalk where they are, search for the room, and try to join it — if it's not full already. Once that's settled — 20 or 30 minutes after that — I pop up the history chat and, well, chat. That's supposed to be my entertainment for the day? Something "easy" and "accesible" to everybody? Sure, figuring out how the controls work is definitely nice, and captured my attention for about 2 hours.

GTalk took me one minute to learn. Most webcam-based chat rooms even less. None drag my poor computer down on their knees. And, of course, if the whole point is to have my poor Mac struggling along logging in to a virtual world, then at least I expect it to be worth my time.

Anedoctal evidence is no evidence at all, of course, and I'm sure that Google is targeting their own user base, ie. the 250 million or so Google Account users, most of them never having seen a "social 3D webchat room" before. They'll be happy to say "wow, I'm in an avatar-based virtual world, too, and it's cool!". For about 2 hours, which is good enough for a casual user...

[Bret Treasure]

Some blowback from someone that doesn't matter...

Lively doesn't look like a competitor to Second Life; more like an attempt to migrate Facebook users to a 3D chat platform.

What is not dealt with in the article is the quality of the experience. Not just the interface but how slowly rooms load and how much lag exists with even a few people in the room.

This means bad first impressions and that will proscribe the uptake. Is the benefit of the product enough to outweigh that pain? I don't think so. I'm with Gwyneth; I don't believe the chat experience is an improvement on 2D and it is not (so far) offering anything other than chat. Avatar customisation options are very limited indeed. It's all very well to say Google has a large user base; what is the niche for this product?

A couple of other shortfalls:

The Lively format draws you into popular rooms; by definition the most laggy environments and the worst possible experience.

The inability to turn off a streaming video is a further annoyance. I'm so sick of my Lisa Nova video. Not conducive to spending a lot of time in there.

Always interesting how the media love a big brand name. The Vivaty product compares very well to Lively and is receiving comparatively little attention.

[len]

"..The Vivaty product compares very well to Lively and is receiving comparatively little attention."

Netz makes a comment on Scoble's blog about the A-listers only listening to their own echo chambers. The LongTail is an anaconda squeezing the life out of markets so the head can consume and digest for months.

The Vivaty offering is better than Lively by several orders of magnitude. Let's see how these stack up when they get out of beta because in the X3D world, the Flux engine is so-so. That means that if they continue to improve it along the lines of the X3D standards, the quality will be predictably good, legally open, and a better market for content developers.

It's time the longtail thralldom is broken. No more Watermelon Economies for content.

[Mapper99]

I think Lively is going in the right direction. Especially once Google merges in real life 3d data from Google Earth and Google Sketchup. They already have integrated into Google Maps:

http://www.livelyworlds.com