Social Network + Virtual Worlds + Google = Lively, the next level of Social virtual worlds
After having shown interests in 3D with Sketchup (which you can still use to design your home to put on Google Earth, and also use its power to make 3D speed modeling, this software being enough performing to do so), Google seems to have mashed up experiences from the Wii console and SecondLife strenghts and weaknesses and gathered a smart tech team to develop a new social virtual world experiment: Lively.com. More than a new competitor landing into the social virtual worlds field, Lively.com would certainly become the test field for Google to challenge current advertising and face the new opportunities, including social media advertising placement, value added advertising embedded into conversations, technology challenge to make it work and worth time spending, and above all new and relevant metrics and ROI calculation methods.
Here’s the presentation, better named trailer, of the visual aspect of the upcoming 3D social network Google is willing to develop:
Some are criticizing character design of Lively digital people. Sure it’s more related to IMVU, Habbo Hotel, or other comics virtual worlds but be honest, it’s just not about to be a real entry barrier. Have a look at Wii games success targeted to adult consumers. You will say it’s not design that makes the success of Nintendo, and you’re right, that’s the innovation they put inside their games. And I really think they would do as well into their virtual world. Not because they’re Google (I don’t care about Google, Microsoft, or others, I just want usability and effectiveness), but because they have expertise in what they’re heading to due to time spent over 3D tools and efficiency to creating useful applications (Gmail, Google News, Google Reader, Google Maps, Google, Google Analytics, and many others). So why would they make it change right now on a hot topic furthermore?
OpenSocial would be the key to turn virtual worlds into user interface for people to chat, socialize, and share directly with others, personfied and able to real-time share and speak with each others. Which would show the 3rd dimension of advertising: influence over others. Click and Lead are only quantitative metrics than help people face campaigns ROI, but personified virtual socialization and content exchange would make possible to work out influence rate: X people where with him looking at anything, Y were actually buying things while speaking with him, he incited Z people to review stuff and go visit anything. What couldn’t be accurately monitored would be.
That’s why it’s interesting to see Google move there. That’s the next battle field for advertising, we all seen that happened with Second Life hype and fall when companies understood that wouldn’t lead anywhere until there are metrics to validate and certified benefits. And that’s to me what Google would provide to companies. Meaning Google is already one step closer to be the next generation advertising Guru, which makes it the next 10 or more years leaders in Internet advertising business. Which is their major concern. They would never care to join the virtual worlds otherwise.
Source: TechCrunch
