Following is a guest post by Praval who is a freelance writer/blogger and works for Uswaretech, a Django Consulting shop as a Web Evangelist and Online Marketer.

I simply love and adore Google from the deep bottom of my heart. Wherever and whenever I hear Google’s name, spring blossoms in my otherwise deserted mind. It’s not just because Google is the biggest internet firm on the internet but simply because Google never leaves me alone on web no matter what I try to do. Google’s strategy is very simple if you can’t buy the technology, make the exact technology.

clip_image001Google Inc. is here with its newest product Google Lively, a web based virtual environment which provides a platform for users to connect with themselves in a 3-d chat world, somewhat in pretty similar manner like second life. Google lively runs in the web browser but you have to install a small client program before you can use it. Currently only Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is supported on Windows XP and Vista.

The Environment

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You can enter lively either by two ways, create your own environment or ‘room’ or you can simply log in to someone else’s room. A room can only accommodate up to 20 people. You can completely customize your room as your own likings including furniture, videos from YouTube and pictures from Picasa can be put on the wall, as if they were pieces of art and many things more. To interact with other users, type in the message and it will appear on the top of your avatar. At a time only two messages will be displayed.

The Avatars

Google Lively comes with some pre defined avatars which you can modify or customize. You can change their clothes, hairstyle, shoes, accessories, mood and much more according to your personality or simply let your imagination flow and become what you can’t be in this virtual world. Other than typing messages you can interact with other users through animated actions. Click on your character and switch to the Animations tab to find an overview about all the actions you can perform. You can also simply type in these actions and your avatar will perform it. Currently the actions which are supported are: Angry, Applaud, Bow, Cheer, Confused, Cry, Dance1 and Dance2, Evil Laugh, Fear, Happy, Laugh, Flirt, Sad etc.

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The Navigation

Primarily you have to use your mouse to navigate in the room. To move around the room, simply press the left mouse button on your avatar and move your mouse to make your avatar walk.

Left mouse button: zoom or rotate the camera. Right mouse button: tilt the camera upwards and downwards. Double Click: double-click a spot near-by to directly move your avatar to it. Arrow keys: to move the camera freely around the room. Mouse scroll wheel: to zoom in/out. Hold Ctrl and move the mouse up and down to move the camera up and down. Click the top left eye icon and select “Avatar’s View”, if you have lost track of your avatar.

The Performance

I tried and tested Google Lively on my 2mbps Internet connection and it gave me a pretty hard time. It is no doubt extremely slow and even crashes a lot. So it’s recommended to run it in a separate browser. The loading which includes initialization of components and 3-d objects takes much time too. I hope the final version would be much more stable and would give a more lively experience than this beta version.

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