"After downloading free software, users can create cartoonish avatars, roam in virtual chat rooms, watch videos from Google's YouTube and photos from Picasa, or create their own virtual rooms to chat with friends and family. Lively avatars can assume different identities, change cloths, laugh, cry and hug with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Google says Lively is a "20 percent project" by Google Labs, meaning it's about 20 percent complete. The lab is where the company tests new products before launching them. Unlike the real world, Google said it is not planning to sell ads in its new virtual world."
Lively is a fun little 3D chat. The greatest part is you're able to embed your own chat room (or someone elses) in your website.
Does 20% project mean it is 20% complete? A 20% project at Google means they let their employees spend 20% of their time on a new project, which supposedly means the Lively "team" is made up of Google employees who wanted to do something else on Friday than their usual work. (I think :-)
Anyhow, if you're on a Windows system, you can use Lively, the beta is only available to those users right now.
Posted by: BB | July 21, 2008 at 10:14 PM