Create Your Own Virtual World of Social Network with Google Lively
Written by Pratik on July 9th, 2008 in Social Networking Website Tips.
Google has just launched Lively, a new social network built around the concept of each user creating an avatar and a personal virtual room that can be embedded anywhere on the Web. In essence, Google is looking to create a massive distributed virtual world, where every Google account can have its own avatar that can be used wherever a Lively virtual room is present – for example, on a blog, a social networking profile, or a Web page.
To use Lively, you do need to sign up using a Google account and download a browser plug-in. From there, you are able to create your own avatar – starting from a “template” character which then has customizable attributes like skin tone, hair color, and eye colors. You can also dress your character with clothing and accessories. In turn, you’re now ready to use Lively wherever you encounter a room on the Web by signing into it with your virtual account.You can also watch YouTube clips on virtual TVs and share your own photos.
Setting the plugin up and creating an avatar is a very simple process. Creating rooms, too, seems quite easy, as you can quickly import a number of templates to get started. Currently, all virtual items for Lively are for free, but chances are that Google will start charging for premium items in the future.
For now, the content in Lively is being created only by Google, though over time, they are planning to allow users to start creating their own content as well.
