So by now it’s not news any more, but a fact: Google has entered the profitable (?) world of virtual worlds (pun obviously intended). A much awaited development, at least by the faithful believers that Google will save the world.
I don’t think there are coincidences. In about 24 hours (not in the same day for the timezone-impaired), Sun’s Wonderland gets slashdotted, Linden Lab announces the massive growth of Second Life and demonstrates the interoperability between their main grid and IBM’s OpenSim-based grid, and Google launches their own virtual world, Lively. July 8th was definitely the Day of the Metaverse!
Simultaneously, Metaverse Development Companies like Millions of Us and Rivers Run Red announce that they have developed virtual presences for their companies on Google’s brand new virtual world, so it’s clear that this wasn’t a surprise to either of them — both have “rooms” in Lively, and MoU even has already placed one of their clients, National Geographic.
So, like probably billions of people around the world, I tried to join in to Lively and see what’s all about. Not to be turned down by the lack of Mac support (no new virtual world supports the Mac these days, in spite of the “promises” done to “support it soon” — with “only” 8% of market share and growing, the Mac is simply not interesting for developers to focus on), I launched Parallels and hoped to get in that way.
