Google launches IMVU clone?
Breaking news, Google’s now a player in the virtual world market:
Watch the movie, it looks nice! Better than IMVU, if the movie is any indication of how it works… as a Mac user, I have to try it later though.
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So far, it’s pretty clunky, and you aren’t missing much. I would have expected better of Google than yet another IMVU/Meez/whatever clone.
Rivers Run Red is taking it pretty seriously, according to Business Wire.
I guess Raph Koster is fuming… Google stole Metaplace’s show
… and so does Millions of Us. And I wonder if the Sheep’s announcement that they would be “just doing Flash games on the Web” meant they would just develop for Google’s Lively. Hmm.
I just played with it and came away a little disappointed. One of the
users accurately described it as “Yahoo IM meets Second Life.” It’s
just a glorified 3D chat facility.
The avatars are a bit limited in appearance. There is no scripting.
There is NO user generated content. (They state that they plan on
introducing that in the future.) Each user can create a “room” and
invite others to it; but there’s nowhere near the same sense of
“space” that one derives from Second Life.
Summary: ho hum.
I think Lively has potential, though it’s waaaay beta now. IMVU was neat when it began but rip off policies are making creators and users so disgusted they are leaving in droves. Lively is limited now but has room for growth. I’ve never tried Meez. I’ll keep an eye on Lively for creator opportunities.
mcx