Google Launches Lively to Create a Virtual World Across Social Networks

Google has just launched Lively, a new social network built around the concept of each user creating an avatar and a personal virtual room that can be embedded anywhere on the Web. In essence, 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.

Wang tells me that Lively came about during Google’s famous “20 percent time,” where engineers devote 1/5th of their time to their own ideas and projects. But, it’s safe to say that this project may turn into much more. Tying an avatar to your Google account that can be used anywhere there is a Lively room is a unique idea that takes advantage of Google’s huge userbase.