Google’s Metaverse

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1. Tom Churm
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 12:27 am

   If you work in this industry, you’re already living in Google’s Virtual World. At least, for about 10 hours a day…

2. doodoo
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 12:29 am

   Rumor is they are outsourcing some of the graphics development to studios in China. Second Life may soon learn the meaning of First Death

3. Yohay Elam
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 12:53 am

   Playing on a “real” world rather than on an imaginary one sounds cool.

4. Morgan
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 12:55 am

   Good Lord, I feel old. I can’t imagine what’s going on out there that I’m missing, but I can barely keep up with this life.

   On the plus side, it’s a positive sign that people have this much free time on their hands. Here’s hoping this economy keeps surprising analysts and foiling expectations.

5. Darren
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 1:17 am

   well I think it would suck if it was just slapped on google earth.

   sketchup is a great tool and its such a shame google bought them because I think the tool would of had a better life as a tool for level design for games.

   If all these rumours are true why are google burning cash building their own when they could just buy second life, I can’t imagine it would cost that much in the grand scheme of things

6. Kevin Fischer
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 1:19 am

   Coolest rumor of 2007.

7. Paul M. Watson
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 1:57 am

   If it is in anyway real it is obviously not as simple as using the existing Google Earth system. The current resolution of the Google Earth system is far lower than would be needed for a human sized avatar to walk through a city. Maybe the Google Earth client may have the capabilities (does it? viewing and interacting are different things) but the servers would probably have to start with a small area with enough resolution.

8. robert
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 2:02 am

   I thought sergey brin and larry page said they were going to stop focussing on other areas and concentrate more on their core product (search).

   don’t get me wrong…I love everything google, I just don’t wan’t them to neglect what got them there in the first place…

9. Laurent
   

   January 25th, 2007 at 2:11 am

   This is ridiculous. You can’t even zoom in enough to use it as a virtual world like Second Life. And it doesn’t really belong to their mission, organizing the world’s information and make it accessible to anyone… sorry, I call bullshit.

10. Michael Arrington
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 2:25 am

    If you look at the stuff people are creating with SketchUp, it’s clear that the zoomed in stuff would all be virtual…

11. Larry Velez
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 3:59 am

    I have a feeling this rumor is based on this mashup which I read about yesterday.

    It is a flight simulator mashup that uses Google Maps.

    http://www.isoma.net/games/goggles.html

    When I first saw it, the thought on my mind was - ‘this is what SecondLife flying might look like if they built a portal to the “real world” with the help of Google engineers’

    If you look at the video of Linden Labs presenting at Google, you get a sense of how intense the technology they use is. Google’s culture respects hard problems and engineering and you can sense the drooling that was happening as the Google team members in the audience thought of the possibilities.

    Linden Labs at Google Campus Video: http://video.google.com/videop.....8975402950

12. Andy
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 4:56 am

    Technically, Michael, the entire thing is virtual, zoomed in or not.

    Second Life is a dead-end product, being controlled by one company. They did the right thing in open sourcing it, but what is needed is software, like web server software, that a domain can install on their own server(s) to create their own space. With the ability to travel between different “locations” as easy as clicking on a hyperlink. This also puts the entire burden for the location’s capabilities on the machine/domain/server owners themselves (just like web servers). A site with more bandwidth would be more detailed. One with more server resources could support more users at once. Google has the infrastructure to do this, obviously, but keeping it centralized seems backward (like the AOL of the 90s, walled gardens and all that), especially since we have witnessed the tremendous growth of the internet due to being able to run your own services on your own hardware. Here’s to keeping the net neutral (but not though legislation!) which is also what enables that.

13. Tiix
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 4:58 am

    Nothing to do with the photoes Google is going to take to people on Australia Day? http://www.google.com/intl/en_.....index.html

14. Ryan
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 6:19 am

    “With the ability to travel between different “locations” as easy as clicking on a hyperlink.”

    You should check out Croquet (http://www.opencroquet.org) if you haven’t seen it already. Very cool, open source, and allows you to travel through portals instantly to get to different worlds.

15. Pieter van der Veer
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 6:23 am

    I can see the point of adding 3D to their services. Finding a location is one thing, viewing the location in 3D is another. Imagine searching for a hotel near a location you found on Google Earth and being able to have a look inside, chat/Skype with the owner in a virtual hotel, making a deal or get explained what’s what. The virtual tour can also be done by a robot, so yeah, I see the point. It’s added value for both advertisers and customers.

16. BlogReader
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 6:32 am

    The current resolution of the Google Earth system is far lower than would be needed for a human sized avatar to walk through a city.

    I agree, this is what is hampering Second Life from becoming a hit too. Wait, what?

    SL’s going to feel what it is like to be Netscaped.

17. whomprat
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 8:26 am

    I’m not sure that Google would want to do exactly what second life does. The nice things about SL are that it allows users IP control over what they create (relatively unique), that they want users to create pretty much everything in the world, and users are there to express creativity/be social.

    Google Earth is a map of reality, which most SL’ers probably want to get away from. Three is nothing better about being in the real Chicago vs. being in a totally make-believe land, from a SL’ers point of view.

    On the other hand, Massive did put virtual ads into Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, and if Google buys Adscape, we might expect ads powered by this tech to appear in Google Earth.

    What might be exciting is if Google’s ad engine combined with SketchUp’s ease of use combined with a plausable ecomomy (the hard part, IMHO) and made a virtual MySpace social networking place that caught on. Fact is, SL is a little too edgy for most people. 90% of the economy is tringo and porn. So what disney did for times suqare in NY, Google might to for a SL-type virtual experience. That would be interesting.

18. steve
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:16 am

    This would make sense. Google’s real mission is after all “to organize the world around advertising”. If it’s true that Google is about to acquire game advertiser Adscape, a virtual world would seem like a logical next step.

19. Morgan Ramsay
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:36 am

    The little company that could has been created a monster. I’d hate to be the marketer in charge of defending the Google brand from dilution.

20. directory
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Myspace and facebook need a kick inthe teeth, if nothing more than to force them to make their products better. A virtual world, community, all tied in with all of the other G services could force this to happen sooner than later. That would be nice.

21. Allen Sligar
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 10:46 am

    Good for Google, if anyone can innovate correctly into this space with a great UI and awesome usability its Google

22. Madame Maracas
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    What Google Earth does is really fantastic, and informative and great gangbusters full of fun to use, but it has NOTHING to do with what makes Second Life interesting. Second Life isn’t a little map world for walking around in, it’s a platform for personal interaction, creative freedom and what I call “an ID run riot”. Yes, it’s a (sometimes) “adult” environment. Yes, there’s sex and gambling and other non-pg type activities. And yes, Virginia there’s a ton of other things going on there.

    Fundraising for cancer research, social skills building for folks with autisim, freedom to interact without barriers for folks with mental, emotional and physical differences/disabilities, too. People come into Second Life and seem to find the unexpected. They find out that they can code, or build or do graphics work. Some go there and make money, but the majority come “in world” to have a good time, meet folks from all over the world and (dare I say it) TALK to each other.

    Yes I hang out in Second Life, and I’ve been in there under one name or the one I’m siging off with here for about 2 weeks shy of 3 years. I didn’t hop over there on some big media bandwagon, and I can tell you, as much as I love Google Earth, and I do, I don’t see the two meeting up in the middle.

    Second Life is about a world that is nearly 100% resident-created content. Linden Labs (the parent company) puts out land, water and building tools, its up to us, the residents to make it what it is. Do you see Google Earth allowing the constant re-forming of its content? I don’t, although it could be fun! (cue maniacal laughter)

23. Jarett
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 3:05 pm

    Heh, and just today, Google put out a competition for college students to model their campuses in SketchUp: http://googleblog.blogspot.com.....in-3d.html

    I like modeling in SketchUp better than I like dragging around and mutilating prims in SL, anyway.

24. Justin Cook
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

    Guess it’s time for me to actually download Google Earth!!!

25. Kerry
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 8:09 pm

    Google + Social Networking = Scary

    I like the simplicity of CityPixel.com or Faketown. Sometimes the big boys come on too strong

26. Edster
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:28 pm

    too bad they’re not making a google WoW — then they’re really start making money…

27. betamod
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 10:11 pm

    SecondLife is merely a better marketed platform than ActiveWorlds was, and the core technology is basically 15+ years old. It will never do more than it does now. It’s basically a 3d MUD with avatars and chat. We have seen this a million times over. Who cares? Google will end up with the same kind of VR cludge-ware unless they change the paradigm, radically.

    I want a VR platform that is based on open source software, open standards and does not rely on artificial scarcity as its driving economic model. In fact, this platform should be the internet and the personal computer since what is called for is an operating system with distributed computing computing capabilities. (See: http://www.gamasutra.com/featu.....tch_05.htm)

    My money is on Open Croquet, by Alan Kay et al, the folks who brought you the personal computer, object oriented programming, the GUI, and who put the TCP in TCP/IP: http://www.opencroquet.org/

    All the rest is fools gold!

28. Jonah Reynolds
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 10:21 pm

    This will happen - its already in the works. But think of its as a generic platform. The first instance would be a virtual earth, where you can explore a vacation plan virtually, talk to the hotel, virtually hike to machu pichu, etc. This is the generic platform - Then, then next step is to bring in WOW and others… not into this generic platform - but based on this platform - moving the software onto the net completely as well as the virtual world. The internet IS the OS…

    Its gonna be an exciting next few years!

    Go google…

    ps: don’t forget that the CEO of google sits on the board at apple…

29. Andre SC
    

    January 25th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

    Me thinks Google’s virtual currency won’t be all that virtual, and you will play from your local mall via mobile

30. Rajoze
    

    January 26th, 2007 at 3:41 am

    Looks more like Google “PR-verse” to prop up sagging goog stock price.

31. Aibek esengulov
    

    January 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    hmmmm, this sounds contradictory to Google’s effort to concentrate on existing products and shut down of Google Answers.

32. Rex Belleville
    

    February 12th, 2007 at 5:58 pm

    It seems to me that there is just too much reality for a real google earth to work. I mean the world is changing so quickly, to simply take a snap shot of today and then have everybody make it into 3D? After pouring a hurcules effort into making one city into 3D what happens when the real world starts to diverge from it? How will real world updates affect all the virtual 3D?

    A ficticious world makes much more sense to me. Every business or game or theme park has an island, continent, or even planet to explore just like Myst. Anything you want to explore in the real world can be duplicated into a ficticious world.

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    February 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

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