The latest from Google is a 3D chat app called Lively. Users can customize avatars and create environments and is pretty much like any other chat app. However, the difference is that though it is not exactly an MMO, it is similar to Second Life. All you need to do is install Firefox or Internet Explorer plug-ins. At the moment, object creation is limited to a lucky few handpicked by Google but later, this maybe extended to other users as well. All the features and stuff seem to be free and users can have ‘real’ chat rooms to discuss products and some objects play YouTube videos as well. Chat rooms can also be embedded on other sites. Animation scripts, hyperlinks to ‘flat’ pages, etc are some of the more interesting features that Lively offers. It is also rumored that this chat app might be included in Orkut. An interesting possibility is that of merging Lively with Google Earth so that Lively ‘rooms’ can be occupied virtually. However, the news developments are still fresh and more information is yet to come from the folks at Google.
Via: Adverlab
