Google Lively

Google has announced Lively - an avatar and online room/chat combination. I just started playing around with it, so it’s a bit early to say exactly what its role will be in the world of emerging technologies. A quick initial reaction: it’s Second Life distributed. Or as one commentator suggests: “Google is looking to create a massive distributed virtual world, where every Google account can have its own avatar that can be used wherever a Lively virtual room is present – for example, on a blog, a social networking profile, or a Web page.”
Second Life has the elements of a learning management system (LMS), i.e. you go to the site to do what you want to do. Distributed technologies allow individuals to use a variety of tools and approaches, all of which can be integrated into their own environment. Consider YouTube. I watch most of my YouTube videos as embedded elements in a blog. I don’t go directly to YouTube. Same with Slideshare. The key idea these sites have grasped is that we shouldn’t need to go to data/information. We should be able to experience it in our environments (such as blogs, wikis, or even LMS’). At first glance, Google seems to be trying something similar with virtual worlds - namely, have the world available where you want it, rather than forcing you to go to a certain space. Or, as Google puts it: “It’s integrated with the Internet. It’s not an alternate destination. Our intention is to add to your existing life.”