Google’s long rumoured virtual world play surfaces

Google has long been rumoured to be working on something in the virtual world space - I think for a year or more now people have been telling me that their friends have been sucked into a top-secret project at the GooglePlex.

Yesterday they announced the release of Lively, reported here Techcrunch.

The video below gives you a pretty good idea of what it is about - customisable personal 3D spaces where avatars can interact. Which is good, but stops short of being a persistent single world for everyone, which I think is what makes SL and the others special.