Google thinking of Building it's Own Second Life

For some time now, we here at CNET News.com have been hearing whispers that Google might be looking to get into the virtual world space, particularly in light of the increasing interest of existing environments like Second Life, and the success of Google Earth and the search giant's purchase of the Sketchup technology.

Well, now we might finally be on to something. According to TechCrunch, Google may already be testing its own 3D virtual world technology, in a secret experiment at Arizona State University.

And according to a report published Monday from eMarketer, Google is "planning enhancements to Google Earth to let users connect virtually with one another."

To be sure, there's no doubt that Google has the resources, especially with Sketchup and Google Earth, to build a vast and powerful 3D virtual world. To many, they're very likely the only ones who could ramp up such an operation and quickly make it successful.

But the key to a really vital virtual world is user-created content. And while users of services like Sketchup could easily import huge amounts of precreated 3D content into a Google-run virtual world, it wouldn't be the kind of new, emergent content that populates Second Life and, to a lesser extent, There.

What that means is that a Google virtual world would still take a long time to have the wide variety and total diversity that it would need to catch the popular imagination. Of course, it would almost certainly have a technological superiority to the shaky Second Life platform, and that could go a long way to bringing in mass numbers of users. But, it would not be an overnight thing.

If it's even happening. And with rumors being what they are, you never know.

A Google spokesman offered this comment: "We're always looking for new ways to help our users connect with each other, share information, and express themselves, but we don't have any new details to share at this time."

The report follows on the heels late last week of a TechCrunch blog item saying that Google will announce a set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to "leverage Google's social graph data. They'll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google's personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Google Talk and other Google services over time."

The move is designed, according to TechCrunch's anonymous sources, to address the "Facebook issue."

I disagree - gambling would still be prohibited, unless the UIGEA is repealed. And I doubt they would permit ageplay. What they wouldn't do is schmooze us with this "trust" BS and use Integrity(less) as their third party verification service.

Yes they would comply with clear laws like the UIGEA. On everything else in my view they would shrug, I think, to be honest.

I don't think Google would entertain the kind of press LL got over ageplay. Google, even more than LL, is a global company with far deeper pockets. They too would have to eschew things like the pixellated depiction of sex with minors to comport with European laws (whereas in America, our SCT lets that occur). Would they depend on us to snitch on each other to rat it out? Probably. As large and great as Google is, they are not omniscient.

Methinks not much would change due to the legal implications. All things being equal, gimme the platform that works!

I dunno .. Google is pretty teflon about bad press. They've gotten a lot of it in terms of being accused of trying to take over the world, or invading people's privacy with GoogleStreetView --- yet they pretty much keep on trucking. They may follow the same policy as LL on ageplay, for prudential reasons. But to be honest the entire philosophy of Google is that they are not responsible for the *content* of what is reachable on their various platforms. They just set up the platforms and list the content. I'm almost certain that this philosophy, which runs very deep at Google, would inform their approach to a VR project. I would be stunned if they behaved otherwise, to be honest.

I understand. They would probably skip the age verification thing and act like *gasp* every other adultish content provider out there and require you to acknowledge that you are over 18 as a condition to entry. That would be better than selling out to Integrity(less).

I understand. They would probably skip the age verification thing and act like *gasp* every other adultish content provider out there and require you to acknowledge that you are over 18 as a condition to entry. That would be better than selling out to Integrity(less).

Why would they make it a 18+ world? If its Google it will be for "Everyone" Kind of like the Borg.

They might have a 18+ content area idea though.

Few want to face the truth.

There will be a cacophony of worlds. No universal standard.

And yeah, it will kinda suck.

But in the discord, there will be freedom.

Few want to face the truth.

There will be a cacophony of worlds. No universal standard.

And yeah, it will kinda suck.

But in the discord, there will be freedom.

If the Googleplex gets involved count on a few things:

(1) no respect for privacy whatsoever -- you will be relentlessly tracked, every place you go, everything you buy, every bloody keystroke you make will be tracked and pasted into a database to be used by the 'Plex to sell ads or simply to sell;
...
(4) goodbye SL.

Point 1 has serious implications. Searching by relevance, and content delivery by relevance would be really, really powerful and would simplify the shopping immensely. Think of it as the SheepBot, but official. Camping would be miniscule, if it exists at all (there will always be magnanimous people offering camping for noobs).

There wouldn't be much need for third party services like SLX or OnRez because search wouldn't be the anemic chihuahua that it is now. The power to find things for sale would be built into the engine.

What would this economy look like? Hmmmm.

Why would some legitimate competition suck? All I see it doing is forcing LL to actually provide customer service.

Don't you think, though, that a megaplex will emerge out of the chaos? There are many reasons to think that this will happen, certainly not at first, but eventually.

Don't you think, though, that a megaplex will emerge out of the chaos? There are many reasons to think that this will happen, certainly not at first, but eventually.

Not in terms of competition; not even discussing that issue here - not relevant.

More in terms of: there won't be a 'universal world' - we'll still have friends in other worlds such that we'll have to log out of one app and load another to go visit their areas.

HTML is fairly universal for instance; yes there are a zillion other ways to use the internet but HTML is the dominant method for most people.

I'm just saying: This won't be the case for the metaverse. In fact, that's what I see the Company trying hardest to do: to set the standard with the second life grid. While it's a great goal, I doubt it is gonna happen.

Don't you think, though, that a megaplex will emerge out of the chaos? There are many reasons to think that this will happen, certainly not at first, but eventually.