Fans Create NewLively as Blend of Google's World and Second Life
With Google's shut down of Lively at the end of 2008, many of the small but passionate fanbase were left looking for alternatives. Just as users did when Disney closed Virtual Magic Kingdom, a group of dedicated developers has created a homegrown version: NewLively. The team, which is based out of Beijing, developed NewLively in the past month since Google's announcement of closure. While it has a similar look and feel to Lively, the developers say it isn't based on Google's technology.
"What we create is similar to Google Lively, which the users like. Based on this, there should be no problems," explains the FAQ. "We want to prove it. Google Lively’s concept is great and good. Besides, we are not using any codes whatsoever from Google Lively. The entire platform was created new from scratch. Only the concept and the interface remained as Google Lively and the amount of work involved in doing this was quite insignificant in comparison to the creation of the entire system."
According to a related Google group, the world is built on the CC6 platform.
Currently the team, which comes mostly from one unspecified group in China, says it has no plans for monetizing NewLively. It plans first to improve the user experience in the hopes that it will lead to revenue options.
It sounds like the group aims to be competitive, though, with technology ranging from more user-generated content than Lively allowed to stereoscopic 3D.
“About one month ago, I heard the news that lively was shutting down. I was very sad. I have many friends there. So I made a decision. I had to do something for the lively users. We decided to clone lively," developer Liu YiChang told Dizzy Banjo. "So, the first step is to making a place for Lively users. In the longer term it will be something between Google Lively and Second Life. Users will be able to generate some content, for example users will be able to upoad photos, music, video, even avatars and rooms. We have a great advantage over Second Life in the supported concurrent users per server. We use better technology. We estimate that we can support about 5000 users per server, better than most other virtual worlds services.”
Sounds great, for everyone who wants to be portrayed as a cartoon character.
Posted by: Paul Bryar | January 05, 2009 at 07:45 AM
> Sounds great, for everyone who wants to be portrayed as a cartoon character.
If users can upload avatars and rooms as promised then eventually there will be a variety of styles, from cartoon to realistic [cough] to surrealistic.
Posted by: Mark Young | January 05, 2009 at 12:42 PM
"Besides, we are not using any codes whatsoever from Google Lively. The entire platform was created new from scratch. Only the concept and the interface remained as Google '
" Based NOT on its technology".. BUT ONLY ON THE Trademarked name. logo, and copyrighten character and interface designs all owned by Google, from what ive seen on this."new"- we stole Lively site.
We need MORE real professionals in the vr worlds BUSINESS, not more of this reported nonsense that should only be spoken of as COPYRIGHT infringement and point to the global IP issues VR worlds as a native digital media face.
This is NOT a "Fans save a beloved TV show" type story. The Headline is a crock and should be changed.
Why should Google or anyone invest in any new creative property for business? if a "fan" from China can get PR and clout even from a pr-hype blog like this, by "utlizing" the paid for, owned, intellectual property of another. And its Google non the less, owner of the biggest Non Paid for scam- you tube.
Its a good choice for the NEOPET creators to go only 2d and not subject themselves to the waiste of effort and cost of a 3d mmo. Why bother if everthing non code is FREE in the minds of the vr "industry"? lol
China and Google- it's hard to know who's doing more harm to free market societies.
cdzn
Posted by: chris | January 05, 2009 at 01:28 PM
What was copied from Second Life? From what I see, newLively is just another Lively.
In many articles Lively and Second Life are described as if they were alike, but Second Life is just of a different caliber. If you don't agree, then spend more time on Second Life and you will find the stunning architecture and real fun places to visit.
In my opinion 'Lively' and their clones are not created to directly compete with Second Life, but with the purpose to offer a cartoon interactive 3D chat room, and with more potential ahead.
Any effort in developing virtual worlds is always remarkable and worth to mention, either original concept or clone. The more the merrier, but there is a wide range of products out there.
Posted by: Paola Cerioli | January 05, 2009 at 04:28 PM
This virtual world claims to be developed off of the X3D/VRML standards (partially true as a lot of the code is VRML syntax, with NewLively custom nodes). I haven't gotten it to play interactive X3D/VRML content but it has been tested to support non-interactive content in these formats. This is an impressive display of what the current open standards for the 3d web can do regardless of the time they claim it was done or if they really started back at Lively's launch. Glad to see others supporting the "Open" Metaverse.
Posted by: Damon Hernandez | January 12, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Should be clarified that newlively wasnt created at all by lively users. Was made by people who wanted to make some money from Livelys disappearance. Lively users didnt even like it that they stole livelys creations, and its no surprise that newlively was dead from the beginning.
Posted by: greenbus | January 28, 2009 at 01:10 PM
I dunno, greebus. It certainly isn't SL, but NewLively makes the point that that isn't the case because of the technology. It's the membership.
Again, what is the real market value of SL to a buyer? It's the membership.
On the other hand, NewLively doesn't have to have lots of investors to make it grow in terms of content. There are certainly worlds with better architecture and all of them are quite a bit older than NewLively. It needs content.
Posted by: len | January 28, 2009 at 05:20 PM