Google Unveils "Lively" Virtual World

Online advertising and internet search giant, Google on Tuesday rolled out a new free service that allows people to create and personalize their own character, so called cartoon-like avatar, and have text-based conversations with other Internet users in virtual chat rooms.

The three dimensional service, named "Lively," enables users to create 3D social spaces on Web sites and customize "avatars" to be online proxies. This three dimensional application lets users place virtual "rooms" on websites and decorate their fantasy worlds with images or streaming video clippings from YouTube, Picasa or other online sources.

"We know people already spend a lot of time online socializing, so we just want to try to make it more enjoyable," Google engineering manager Niniane Wang wrote in an online posting.

The virtual “Rooms” can also be integrated with both blogs and social network Websites like MySpace and Facebook. It also allows users to invite friends to that room.

"If you enter a Lively room embedded on your favorite blog or website, you can immediately get a sense of the room creator's interests, just by looking at the furniture and environment they chose," Wang said.

"You can also express your own personality by customizing your avatar's look, showing people who you are without having to say a word. Of course, you can chat with each other, and you can also interact through animated actions."

Lively by Google seems to become a challenger to Second Life site, which is owned by San Francisco-based Linden Lab company, as well as other animated online worlds that require memberships and don't allow users take their creations elsewhere on the Web.

Launched five years ago, Second Life is a three-dimensional software world on the Web. Users of this site design animated characters for themselves in order to interact with other participants. Users buy and sell virtual land and build businesses with currency called "Linden Dollars," which can be exchanged for real currency.

Google said that the service, announced in a post on the company's official blog on Tuesday, is totally free, and the company, so far, has no plans to sell advertising in it.

The company said that students at Arizona State University have been testing Lively for several months.