Lively.com review - Google takes aim at IMVU

UPDATE - Why did Google kill Lively?

Here's a review of the new browser-based 3D virtual world.

Google just took a very big leap into virtual worlds with Lively. The news was first covered on TechCrunch.

Pretty interesting move from a search powerhouse! Although on first blush it seems quite distant from their core purpose in life, there are no doubt advertising implications they want to take advantage of. Here's a review of what the launch offering looks like.

Lively seems to be designed precicely as an IMVU killer focusing on simple, low poly fun 3D avatar chat and rooms.

Being Google you can just sign in with your Google account. After installing the browser plugin (a few MB) you can choose from a few different style templates for your avatar and have some simple level of customisation for hair, eyebrows etc.

Once done, you're in and can customise your own room, visit and room and "bubble" chat with others. It's all in 3D with animations and pretty smooth with a small number of characters on screen (although it slows down a lot in popular rooms).

The graphical quality of avatars is not high polygon, so it's not really trying to compete with Unreal 3 engine offerings or state of the art PC games like Sims 3. And credit to them for going a hardware acceleration approach using DirectX (anyone know if there is OpenGL support for other platforms and mobile??). Much better than taking a software Flash approach.

Some downsides are no MAC or mobile support (for now), no content creation (except for a handful of approved partners)- although with Google Sketch Up no doubt support at least for item creation and likely avatars will come. What will be interesting is how hardwired the avatar customisation is, which today is very simplistic.

The lack of content creation tools will mean for the moment IMVU will retain it's title as king of the 3D chat world, with it's impressive catalog and active development community. One big trend though for IMVU to look out for - Lively's ability to embed into other websites... opening up a whole new distributed community approach. This is something hard for IMVU to replicate without being browser based. The largest browser based avatar offering today is Meez, which uses Java and software rendering. They have an accessibility advantage if Java is installed already as well as an existing user base.

Most existing browser avatar communities are 2D or 2.5D, which will really face the end of the road as the 3D market starts to emerge and take over.

This is a big sign for the industry. In 3D space, I’ve got no doubt first generation standalone client-app virtual worlds like SecondLife, There and Hipihi will face tough competition and many will die out as the new breed of browser 3D apps rise up.

In our own case a while back we decided to stop our standalone client development for exactly this reason and move to web browser technology (we’re in alpha). Even though we were building a user base the writing was on the wall even back then and we made the transition early and set to take advantage with our coming launch. And although our target application and graphical quality is very different from Lively, we share common advantages in development.

The plusses for web approach are faster development (especially layout and GUI), ease of content integration to and from other websites, ability to support multiple platforms like MAC, PC, iPhone etc not to mention a hugely reduced barrier to entry for users are undeniable.

Google is very much targeting the masses with this offering.

So who is likely to get a boost from this move?

In my opinion, the targeted browser 3D apps like action games like InstantAction.com (which is really impressing with its "pick up and go" gameplay), Frenzoo for fashion, web MMOs (some really interesting things coming out of Korea), casual games, education etc.. anything with a unique focus, application and graphical style.

Whilst spelling trouble for client plays and 2D web worlds, Lively could be a big catalyst to get a whole new audience into avatars and virtual worlds, which is great for the whole 3D web industry.

What do you think?