Google Earth + SketchUp: "The beginning of a virtual world"?

From the official Google Blog:

Google's vision of a virtual world certainly is different from Philip's. And what is possible with this combination of software is VERY limited compared to SL (or There or AW or Crocket or). The concept of avatars is missing completely, for example.

It still sounds very "interesting" when a company like Google uses the words "beginning of a virtual world".

Google Sketchup is free, anybody tried it and put something up for viewing yet?

Honestly, Google is the only company right now that seems able to match the development brainpower at LL. But who knows if they're even going in that direction yet.

Its interesting to see it all unfold, though. I've yet to try SketchUp, but I think it may break horribly when I attempt my usual object-intensive design process.

Same samples here including objects embedded intp Google Earth. The rendering quality is not overwhelming but the tool sure is nice! Not good for precise work but very fast, much more intuitive than most CAD packages and more flexible than SLs 3D tools.

But that was not the topic of my post. I was just wondering if there is "more" behind the phrase "beginning of a virtual world."

To me, yes, because my definition of virtual world, in this context, is an online shared interactive 3D environment. I refuse to understand the notions that everyone must share the same contiguous environment all the time and that all references and virtual material must link only to inworld resources.

Web rings are the beginnings of virtual worlds as are aggregate sites such as Stratics. They're not 3D, yet, and there's the big difference here. But the answer is yes, virtual worlds begin when groups of people begin to use available tools to build them and Google is quickly reaching a point of facilitating us lock, stock and barrel.

I had hoped that LL would beat them to it; but that ain't gonna happen.

I've though how great if Google would index any object set to be searched so that you could search for objects for sale.

But after thinking about it. Google should just buy SL or LL.

hmmm but then we'd get GoogleAds on screen.

I can't walk my avatar around Sketchup World, converse with others, or have sex with them.

But it's getting there.

Most professionally supported sites will let us pay a nominal membership fee to avoid seeing advertisements.

It can actually be very precise or as loose as you want, and the data is easily interchangeable with other software. I suspect Google just wants to use it as a mega advertising platform, and they're slowly mapping streetscapes of the major cities in the US.

I've ben using Power Render 6.6 PE lately for a personal project. I still prefer it over this though it's not EXACTLY the same thing. But it's still a nice tool. Supports a good amount of filetypes.