Lively

Google has just released a new product from its Google-Labs: Lively.
In Lively you can enter or create virtual 3D chatrooms. It is an avatar chat where a maximum of 20 poeple are able to chat and have a look at the avatars in the room. For your own avatar and room you can purchase stuff like clothing or furniture.
For now Google says that there is no plan for a commercial use of Lively but I am sure that Google will place its ads near the Lively chatrooms and thats of course a smart thought because people on chatrooms usually spend a lot of time on that site...and that is what the advertiser wants and pays for.

The outlook and the comic-alike avatars on Lively remind me a bit of web-design from the 1990s and I wonder where the difference is between Lively and other Avatar chats?

The good thing is: you can always embed any chatroom via HTML Code to your website. That simply means: Lively can be everywhere. If you enter a website, all over sudden you may be able to enter a Lively chat.

To me, this Lively thing is a nice idea not to be compared with Second Life (...why should Google copy a senseless product??) But I still did not find out what it is good for and what is different here. Hmm...I am sure that Google has some further plans with it.

All in all, to be honest, I am really suspicious, maybe frightened, about this next Google step towards a medial world domination.