Google Testing A Virtual World At Arizona State University?

Someone is beta testing a new product at Arizona State University, according to a student at MacRumors, and it looks like it could be Google's virtual world/social networking platform to be built on Google Earth. MyWorld is a "new product that will be publicly launched later this year" from "a major Internet company," and the questionnaire (ASU ID required) asks both is users have Gmail accounts and virtual avatars. Google Operating System also points out that ASU is heavily involved with Google already, from apps and search to maps and Mars. Also, Google has an office at ASU Tempe. 

In related Google news, last Thursday Google held a confidential meeting dedicated to ousting Facebook from its spot as the open social network. On Friday, Techcrunch published a report on the meeting, saying that the goal was to be 100% open--compared to Facebook's supposed 98% openness--with a new set of APIs to be released on November 5. The APIs will link Orkut with iGoogle and then move outward to other Google apps.

If this really is Google's project at ASU, that means it's not just shooting to create competition for Second Life, but tie that in to Facebook. Previously, we reported on Unype, a mashup of Facebook, Google Earth, and Skype that allowed Facebook users to link their profiles to Collada  avatars. If Google can build out its own social network before going public with its virtual world, that provides it with a large base of socially oriented potential users.

Another, and possibly more likely option, is that this project doesn't have anything to do with Google Earth, at least initially. With the work being put into Orkut, Google might simply be working on a way to avatar-ize the network. It would make sense to tie that into Google Earth, but possibly only down the road.  Those might come as mash-ups through the users or third parties, like Media Machines, which just received  $9.4 million in funding to continue work on Flux Studios, a virtual world tool compatible with Google Earth and Google 3D.

There's no way to know for now, but we'll keep an eye on the project. Any current ASU students out there want to talk about the experience?

Comments

[Jeremy Vaught]

Very interesting indeed. But my first question is, Orkut? If they are trying to tie this in closely to Orkut, then this means one of two things. 1. They are trying to monopolize the Brazilian virtual world, ummm world. 2. They hope English speakers will care about Orkut, which unless something drastic happens, is not likely anytime soon.

[Timothy Zapotocky]

Second Life has a surprisingly large number of Brasilian users given that Brasil still qualifies a 3rd world country. So an Orkut-based virtual world might be a viable proposition.

Google Earth would be the first spherical virtual world, which sounds like a trivial achievement, but it will make a difference once virtual worlds approach planetary size. It actually woukd be handy even on Second Life... instead of islands which can only be TPed to, with blank squares all around, we cd have actual planets. It might be a more realistic model for a VW. (BTW, even though we think of space, and usually model it, as a flat 3d space, the 3 dimensions are all based on the spherical and rotating nature of the earth: the Z axis points away from the center of the earth, the Y axis towards the north pole, and the X axis in the direction the earth is rotating (i.e., East.)

[Timothy Zapotocky]

correction: Google Earth already IS a spherical virtual world, even if it does lack avatars. It is like our earth on the 5th day or so of creation... everything is there aside from the life.

[Zeb]

Actually, There.com was the first spherical virtual world.