Google’s Virtual Earth?
Discussing Second Life and Google’s new SketchUp product in April 2006, I wrote
What stops Google from offering a virtual-earth.google.com that is essentially a coordinate space for users to populate with their models? … [This] could be used to spice up many Google offerings, such as Google Groups’ mail list feature, IM, personal home pages and the nascent markets on Google Base.
Techcruch is now reporting a rumour that Google is turning Google Earth into a virtual world. Given Google’s strengths open standards, I would be be surprised if a Google offering didn’t improve on Second Life’s walled-garden approach. Of course, given that Google paid for YouTube’s community, it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point Google acquired Linden Labs or reached some sort of understanding to ‘join’ the two worlds.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:13 am
Purchasing? Maybe not - that might have happened a few years ago, but today Second Life is a little too big (and they know that they have enough customers and a need).
They might become “investors” or come to some kind of understanding.
That said, I think it is only a matter of time before Google gets into MMORPGs, one way or the other - especially given this new development. Gaming is lucrative by itself, but MMORPGs and the like (I am not sure what you’d call Second Life) definitely seem to fill a niche for a sizeable chunk of the geek-crowd out there.
Thoughts?
January 29th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Youtube was big too (as was Flickr when it was bought). I don’t think ‘bigness’ is a criteria for not buying, in fact a big and passionate community is a positive factor while acquiring.
Besides, creating content is a pain and once a lot of people have spent time (or money!) creating models for Second Life, so any competing v-world will definitely want some way to either connect with SL or users to use SL goodies on their world.