One trend I have been following recently is Google's development of it's answer to Second Life, "Lively" which was released over the summer. Many in the software development industry are constantly appalled by google's efforts of constant one-upsmanship, and feel that Google's forays into these arenas may, over the long term, dampen consumer desire for the product because ideas will not evolve.
One of the biggest drawbacks, as I see, with the "metaverse" software that is all the rage is that most of the time hardware requirements are not keeping up with the development of this software and the vast majority of the people who could push this software to the forefront don't have the technical capabilities to handle it. Also, most who initially experience the software will see it as nothing more than a virtual chat room that operates slowly, unless they are informed for the full breadth of capabilities that this software can offer. Also, the amount of rooms or "areas" provided by lively could become confusing and overwhelming to first time users of the software.
One of the positives that Lively is likely to possess that Second Life may be outpaced for is google has superior capabilities to design 3-D rendering, which is valuable to users who design their own "space".
mashable.com, basically a "People Magazine" of social networking software actually has a pretty good description of what it is and how to use it.
Lively Official Website
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2 comments:
I agree about Google- aside from the one-upmanship it displays, it tends to eat things alive. This comment is a bit off topic, but I remember using Writely, which was a great tool, but was subsumed by Google docs. Google docs are good, but in my opinion, Writely was better. Oddly enough, because Google's branding is so strong and effective, I can barely remember what the user interface for Writely looked like.
It's a shame that Google overpowers the market so much, because as you've indicated here, it lessens the likelihood that smaller but equally effective applications will be explored and developed.
I am just learning about SecondLife. Maybe I should check out Lively too before I begin and get hooked.
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