melanie mcbride online

My avatar and my private Lively room

Next to iPhone mania, Google’s Lively generated the greatest amount of buzz in my little corner of the social media universe this weekend. I got my first view via friends Flickr galleries, which conveyed a lot about their apparent demographic.

In a nutshell, Lively is a virtual world - similar to Second Life- where you can do the following things (from the Google description):

• Create your own virtual space
• Chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design
• Express yourself through gestures, sounds and chat
• Customize your avatar and stream personal photos and video
• Add your room to your site
• Invite your friends to chat and help decorate

Sadly, Lively is a Windows-only world (Vista/XP), which resulted in several of my mac loving friends unable to join me inworld. And while Lively was easy to install and fairly simple to navigate, my experiences so far were not entirely fun.

Here are my first impressions - with hopes that Lively becomes something a little bit more than a noisy mess.

Lively visit 1: Finding my way around

I got my bearings fairly easily and explored a few different spaces. Lacking any official welcoming committee, first encounters are entirely random. Though the majority of my interactions were positive, some were less than polite (more to come). If I were Google, I’d set up a virtual greeter that all new visitors have to engage before they go any further.

With the exception of the cartoon avatars, everybody looks like something out of a cell phone ad. Clearly aimed at 20-somethings and teens, you’ve got a selection of contrived cool with highly stylized looks and gestures. Take your pick from the following demeanors: Bored, smug, bimbo-pout and spaced out. Given these choices, I wanted to set myself apart. I selected the least sexy clothing available and an icy gray haircut that communicates something of my age difference (yeah, that’s important to me).

While the above choices may be convenient for some, I’d rather have greater customization. And I’m sure, in time, there will be many different types of avatars to select. For now, you’re a scenester or a cartoon character. Take your pick.

I took a look at the list of popular rooms, which included such attractions as: Fight club, porn place, dating cafe and Lively Fashion. Though there were a lot of other kinds of user generated rooms based on cafe themes and more neutral interests, the popularity of sleaze and violence was a big thumbs down for me.

I couldn’t resist the mention of Ewoks so I visited that room out first. Here’s me (dressed as the Kitten Sheriff) checking the place out. The Ewoks room is a cross between Lord of the Flies and a frat party. It’s a “good time” party place that may or may not leave you feeling exhausted after a few minutes - but worth a visit.

Given the emphasis on dating, I quickly found that my female avatar was receiving a lot of unwanted attention. So I changed myself into a gunslinging Kitten Sheriff with a mustache and ten gallon hat. Worked well. I much prefer the interactions I have in this avatar so I will likely use this when exploring public spaces.

Lively visit 2: Creating a Lively Room

My next step was to create my own room from a list of pre-fab shells (various room “themes” - winter, office, pool, windmill, outerspace, etc). I liked that I could create a private space, which is an answer for those of you seeking more signal and less noise.

I wanted to create something with a zen feel to it so I found a natural looking setting with bird sounds and creaky windmill and decorated it with benches, chairs and plants. I called it, simply, “Zenview.” I used to love dollhouses as a kid so it was a lot of fun to select and arrange various furnishings in my virtual space. No doubt, this feature of Lively is the biggest attraction. I certainly like this feature a lot.

After I set up my room I sent out an invite to my Twitter friends and another educator pal arrived soon after. I showed him a bit of what I learned and helped him set up his own room (sectional couches and plants sure to help to fill up empty space!). It was a lot of fun to spend time in here with a person I know and we talked a bit about potential uses for educators.

Visit Zen View now!

Visit 3: The ugly side of Lively

Every social space has a dark side. At Lively this manifests in violence and aggression. Upon my return inworld I visited a non descript public room that had an interesting Asian themed visual. I don’t remember the name though it was NOT identified as a “fight” space (as the “Fight Club” room clearly is).

Within moments of arriving, other visitors started punching me. When my avatar landed on the floor they then started kicking me in the head and sides. I changed into my female avatar to see if this might make any difference but the result was the same. Watching my virtual female self being so violently abused was really upsetting. Though I certainly don’t speak for all women, I know many people who would NEVER venture into a space like this willingly.

The fact that avatars are equipped with fighting movements is depressing. I don’t have a problem with these sorts of features working only in set environments - spaces that are clearly designated for battle - but equipping all avatars with this ability anywhere is pretty repellent.

Violence isn’t an element I’m looking for in any form of social interaction  - online or off. Epic social FAIL, Google. Do you want this space populated by losers or are women welcome too? Please address this.

Potential for educators and education?

There is no doubt that Lively has great potential as a space for learning and adventure. The look and feel will appeal to youth to college aged learners and Lively is a lot easier to investigate than Second Life (though I’m hoping Linden Lab will take Lively as a productive challenge to make SL easier for noobs). The ability to create rooms is a big plus - though they could use even further privacy settings. Ideally, Google would develop a version of Google Lively that is strictly for educational uses and separate from the central space.

All of the above said, the sleaze and violence is a big problem for me. Ideologically speaking, these two themes are already far too pervasive in our culture. We need less, not more of both. Especially in relation to social and community learning experiences.

As an open minded, pro-technology educator, I will continue to examine Lively and try to focus on the potential for this and other spaces like it.