Eric Baber's blog

Thanks to Cleve Miller for this one.

Google has announced the release of Lively, a 3D environment, sort of similar to Second Life. The good thing about it is that it doesn't need a humongous download to operate and works from within a browser; this means that people can create their own rooms and embed them in their website or blog (as long as the blog engine allows iFrames, which mine doesn't, so I've set up a room here). The drawback is that it's still clunkier than Second Life, and only works on Windows. It's still in beta, though, so hopefully it'll go cross-platform at some point.

I very much like the idea that it's browser-based and significantly easier to use than Second Life.